BONNER 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


TOMORROW'S 
TANGLE 


"THAT'S    MY    I.IKK, — TO    WOKK    ix    WILD    I-LACKS    WITH   MKN  " 


BY 


GERALDINE  BONNER 


ILLUSTRATIONS  BY 

ARTHUR  I.  KELLER 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


(Jol'YRUJHT     1903 

THE   BOBBS-MERRILL 
OCTOBER 


PRESS  OF 

BRAUNWORTH  &  CO. 

BOOKBINDERS  AND  PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN,  N.  Y. 


TOMORROW'S 
TANGLE 


16C835G 


CONTENTS 


PROLOGUE 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    THE  DESERT  1 

II    STRIKING  A  BARGAIN  7 

III  HE  RIDES  AWAY  28 

IV  THE  ENCHANTED  WINTER  50 

MARIPOSA  LILY 

I    HIS  SPLENDID  DAUGHTER  71 

II    THE  MILLIONAIRE  86 

III  RETROSPECT  100 

IV  A  GALA  NIGHT  119 
V    TRIAL  FLIGHTS  130 

VI    THE  VISION  AND  THE  DREAM  147 

VII    THE  REVELATION  157 

VIII    ITS  EFFECT  172 

IX    HOW  COULD  HE"  181 

X    THE  PALE  HORSE  194 

XI    BREAKS  IN  THE  RAIN  214 

XII    DRIFT  AND  CROSSCUT  229 

XIII  THE  SEED  OF  BANQUO  245 

XIV  VAIN  PLEADINGS  260 
XV    THROUGH  A  GLASS  DARKLY  276 

XVI    REBELLIOUS  HEARTS  294 

XVII    FRIEND  AND  BROTHER  811 

XVIII    WITH  ME  TO  HELP  331 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIX    NOT  MADE  IN   HEAVEN  850 

XX    THE  WOMAN  TALKS  886 

XXI    THE  MEETING  IN  THE  RAIN  882 

XXII    A  NIGHT'S  WORK  898 

XXIII  THE  LOST  VOICE  410 

XXIV  A  BROKEN  TOOL  426 
XXV    HAVE  YOU  COME  AT  LAST  435 

EPILOGUE 

I    THE  PRIM  A  DONNA  451 


PROLOGUE 


TOMORROWS  TANGLE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  DESERT 

"To  every  man  a  damsel  or  two." 

— JUDGES. 

The  vast,  gray  expanse  of  the  desert  lay  still  as  a  pic 
ture  in  the  heat  of  the  early  afternoon.  The  silence  of 
waste  places  held  it.  It  was  gaunt  and  sterile,  clad 
with  a  drab  growth  of  sage,  flat  as  a  table,  and  with  the 
white  scurf  of  the  alkali  breaking  through  its  parched 
skin.  It  was  the  earth,  lean,  sapless,  and  marked  with 
disease.  A  chain  of  purple  hills  looked  down  on  its 
dead  level,  over  which  a  wagon  road  passed  like  a  scar 
across  a  haggard  face.  From  the  brazen  arch  of  the 
sky  heat  poured  down  and  was  thrown  back  from  the 
scorched  surface  of  the  land.  It  was  August  in  the 
Utah  Desert  in  the  early  fifties. 

In  the  silence  and  deadness  of  the  scene  there  was 
one  point  of  life.  The  canvas  top  of  an  emigrant  wagon 
made  a  white  spot  on  the  monotone  of  gray.  At  noon 
there  had  been  but  one  shadow  in  the  desert  and  this 
was  that  beneath  the  wagon  which  was  stationary  in 
the  road.  Now  the  sun  was  declining  from  the  zenith 
and  the  shadow  was  broadening;  first  a  mere  edge, 
then  a  substantial  margin  of  shade. 

i 


2  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

In  it  two  women  were  crouched  watching  a  child 
that  lay  gasping.  Some  distance  away  beside  his  two 
horses,  a  man  sat  on  the  ground,  his  hat  over  his  eyes. 

One  of  the  thousand  tragedies  the  desert  had  seen 
was  being  enacted.  Crushed  between  that  dead  indif 
ference  of  earth  and  sky,  its  participators  seemed  to 
feel  the  hopelessness  of  movement  or  plaint  and  sat 
dumb,  all  but  the  child,  who  was  dying  with  that  sol 
emn  aloofness  to  surroundings,  of  which  only  those 
who  are  passing  know  the  secret.  His  loud  breathing 
sounded  like  a  defiance  in  the  silence  of  that  savagely 
unsympathizing  nature.  The  man,  the  women,  the 
horses,  were  like  part  of  the  picture  in  their  mute  im 
mobility,  only  the  dying  child  dared  defy  it. 

He  was  a  pretty  boy  of  three,  and  had  succumbed  to 
one  of  the  slight,  juvenile  ailments  that  during  the 
rigors  of  the  overland  march  developed  tragic  powers 
of  death.  His  mother  sat  beside  him  staring  at  him. 
She  was  nineteen  years  of  age  and  had  been  married 
four  years  before  to  the  man  who  sat  in  the  shadow 
of  the  horses.  She  looked  forty,  tanned,  haggard, 
half  clad.  Dazed  by  hardship  and  the  blow  that  had 
just  fallen,  she  had  the  air  of  a  stupefied  animal.  She 
said  nothing  and  made  no  attempt  to  alleviate  the  suf 
ferings  of  her  first-born. 

The  other  woman  was  some  ten  years  older,  and  was 
a  buxom,  handsome  creature,  large-framed,  capable, 
stalwart — a  woman  built  for  struggles  and  endurance — 
the  mate  of  the  pioneer.  She,  too,  was  the  wife  of  the 
man  who  sat  by  the  horses.  He  was  of  the  Mormon 
faith,  which  he  had  joined  a  year  before  for  the  pur 
pose  of  marrying  her. 


THE   DESERT  3 

The  sun  sloped  its  burning  course  across  the  pale 
sky.  The  edges  of  the  desert  shimmered  through  veils 
of  heat.  Far  on  the  horizon  the  mirage  of  a  blue  lake, 
with  little  waves  creeping  up  a  crescent  of  sand,  painted 
itself  on  the  quivering  air.  The  shadow  of  the  wagon 
stealthily  advanced.  Suddenly  the  child  moved,  drew 
a  fluttering  breath  or  two,  and  died.  The  two  women 
leaned  forward,  the  mother  helplessly;  the  other,  with 
a  certain  prompt  decision  that  marked  all  her  move 
ments,  felt  of  the  pulse  and  heart. 

"It's  all  over,  Lucy,"  she  said  bruskly,  but  not  un 
kindly  ;  "I  guess  you'd  better  get  into  the  wagon ;  Jake 
and  I'll  do  everything." 

The  girl  rose  slowly  like  a  person  accustomed  to 
obey,  moved  to  the  back  of  the  wagon,  and  climbed  in. 

The  man,  who  had  seen  this  sudden  flutter  of 
activity,  pushed  back  his  hat  and  looked  at  his  wives, 
but  did  not  move  or  speak.  The  second  wife  covered 
the  dead  child  with  her  apron,  and  approached  him. 

"He's  dead,"  she  said. 

"Oh !"  he  answered. 

"We  must  bury  him,"  was  her  next  remark. 

"Well,  all  right,"  he  assented. 

He  went  to  the  wagon  and  detached  from  beneath  it 
a  spade.  Then  he  walked  a  few  rods  away  and,  clear 
ing  a  space  in  the  sage,  began  to  dig.  The  woman 
prepared  the  child  for  burial.  The  silence  that  had 
been  disturbed  resettled,  broken  at  intervals  by  the 
thud  of  the  spade.  The  heat  began  to  lessen  and  a 
still  serenity  to  possess  the  barren  landscape.  The 
desert  had  received  its  tribute  and  was  appeased. 

The  rites  of  the  burial  were  nearly  completed,  when 


4  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

a  sound  from  the  wagon  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
man  and  the  woman.  They  stopped,  listened  and  ex 
changed  a  glance  of  alarmed  intelligence.  The  woman 
walked  to  the  wagon  rapidly,  and  exchanged  a  few  re 
marks  with  the  other  wife.  Her  voice  came  to  the 
man  low  and  broken.  He  did  not  hear  what  she  said, 
but  he  thought  he  knew  the  purport  of  her  words.  As 
he  shoveled  the  earth  into  the  grave  his  brow  was  con 
tracted.  He  looked  angrily  harassed.  The  second 
wife  came  toward  him,  her  sunburnt  face  set  in  an 
expression  of  frowning  anxiety. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  in  answer  to  his  look,  "she  feels  very 
bad.  We  got  to  stop  here.  We  can't  go  on  now." 

He  made  no  answer,  but  went  on  building  up  the 
mound  over  the  grave.  He  was  younger  by  a  year  or 
two  than  the  woman  with  whom  he  spoke,  but  it  was 
easy  to  be  seen  that  of  her,  as  of  all  pertaining  to  him, 
he  was  absolute  master.  She  watched  him  for  a  mo 
ment  as  if  waiting  for  an  order,  then,  receiving  none, 
said: 

"I'd  better  go  back  to  her.  I  wish  a  train'd  come  by 
with  a  doctor.  She  ain't  got  much  strength." 

He  vouchsafed  no  answer,  and  she  returned  to  the 
wagon,  and  this  time  climbed  in. 

He  continued  to  build  up  and  shape  the  mound  with 
sedulous  and  evidently  absent-minded  care.  The  sweat 
poured  off  his  forehead  and  his  bare,  brown  throat  and 
breast.  He  was  a  lean  but  powerful  man,  worn  away 
by  the  journey  to  bone  and  muscle,  but  of  an  iron 
fiber.  He  had  no  patience  with  those  who  hampered 
his  forward  march  by  sickness  or  feebleness. 

When  he  had  finished  the  mound  the  sun  was  declin- 


THE   DESERT  5 

ing  toward  the  tops  of  the  distant  mountains.  The 
first  color  of  its  setting1  was  inflaming  the  sky  and 
painting  the  desert  in  tones  of  strange,  hot  brilliancy. 
The  vast,  grim  expanse  took  on  a  tropical  aspect. 
Against  the  lurid  background  the  chain  of  hills  turned 
a  transparent  amethyst,  and  the  livid  earth,  with  its 
leprous  eruption,  was  transformed  into  a  pale  lilac- 
blue.  Presently  the  thin,  clear  red  of  the  sunset  was 
pricked  by  a  white  star-point.  And  in  the  midst  of 
this  vivid  blending  of  limpid  primary  colors,  the  fire 
the  man  had  kindled  sent  a  fine  line  of  smoke  straight 
up  into  the  air. 

The  second  wife  came  out  of  the  wagon  to  help  him 
get  the  supper  and  to  eat  hers.  They  talked  a  little 
in  low  voices  as  they  ate,  drawn  away  from  the  heat 
of  the  fire.  The  man  showed  symptoms  of  fatigue; 
but  the  powerful  woman  was  unconquered  in  her  stub 
born,  splendid  vigor.  When  she  had  left  him,  he  lay 
down  on  the  sand  with  his  face  on  his  arm  and  was 
soon  asleep.  The  sounds  of  dole  that  came  from  the 
wagon  did  not  wake  him,  nor  disturb  the  deep  dream- 
lessness  of  his  exhausted  rest.  The  night  was  half 
spent,  when  he  was  wakened  by  the  woman  shaking 
his  shoulder.  He  looked  up  at  her  stupidly  for  a  min 
ute,  seeing  her  head  against  the  deep  blue  sky  with  its 
large  white  stars. 

"It's  over.    It's  a  little  girl.    But  Lucy's  pretty  bad." 

He  sat  up,  fully  awake  now,  and  in  the  stillness  of 
the  night  heard  the  cat-like  mew  of  the  new-born.  The 
canvas  arch  of  the  wagon  glowed  with  a  fiery  effect 
from  the  lighted  lanterns  within. 

"Is  she  dying?"  he  said  hurriedly. 


6  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"No — net's  bad  as  that.  But  she's  terribly  low. 
We'll  have  to  stay  here  with  her  till  she  pulls  up  some. 
We  can't  move  on  with  her  this  way." 

He  rose  and,  going  to  the  wagon,  looked  in  through 
the  opened  flap.  His  wife  was  lying  with  her  eyes 
closed,  waxen  pale  in  the  smoky  lantern-light.  The 
sight  of  her  shocked  him  into  a  sudden  spasm  of  feel 
ing.  She  had  been  a  fresh  and  pretty  girl  of  fifteen 
when  he  had  married  her,  four  years  before  at  St. 
Louis.  He  wondered  if  her  father,  who  had  given  her 
to  him  then,  would  have  known  her  now.  In  an  excess 
of  careless  pity  he  laid  his  hand  on  her  and  said : 

"Well,  Lucy,  how  d'ye  feel?" 

She  shrank  from  his  touch  and  tried  to  draw  a 
corner  of  the  blanket,  on  which  her  head  rested,  over 
her  face. 

He  turned  away  and  walked  back  to  the  fire,  saying 
to  the  second  wife : 

"I  guess  she'll  be  able  to  go  on  to-morrow.  She  can 
stay  in  the  wagon  all  the  time.  I  don't  want  to  run  no 
risks  'er  gittin'  caught  in  the  snows  on  the  Sierra.  I 
guess  she'll  pull  herself  together  all  right  in  a  few  days. 
I've  seen  her  worse  'n  that." 


CHAPTER  II 

STRIKING   A   BARGAIN 

"How  the  world  is  made  for  each  of  us! 
How  all  we  perceive  and  know  in  it 
Tends  to  some  moments'  product  thus, 
When  a  soul  declares  itself — to  wit : 
By  its  fruit,  the  thing  it  does !" 

— BROWNING. 

Where  the  foothills  fold  back  upon  one  another  in 
cool,  blue  shadows,  and  the  tops  of  the  Sierra,  brushed 
with  snow,  look  down  on  a  rugged  rampart  of  moun 
tains  falling  away  to  a  smiling  plain,  Dan  Moreau  and 
his  partner  had  been  working  a  stream-bed  since  June. 
Placerville — still  Hangtown — though  already  past  the 
feverish  days  of  its  first  youth,  was  some  twenty-five 
miles  to  the  southwest.  A  few  miles  to  the  south  the 
emigrant  trail  from  Carson  crawled  over  the  shoulder 
of  the  Sierra.  Small  trails  broke  from  the  parent  one 
and  trickled  down  from  the  summit,  by  "the  line  of 
least  resistance,"  to  the  outposts  of  civilization  that 
were  planted  here  and  there  on  foothill  and  valley. 

The  canon  where  Moreau  and  his  "pard"  were  at 
work  was  California,  virgin  and  unconquered.  The 
forty-niners  had  passed  it  by  in  their  eager  rush  for 
fortune.  Yet  the  narrow  gulch,  that  steamed  at  mid 
day  with  heated  airs  and  was  steeped  in  the  pungent 

7 


8  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

fragrance  which  California  exhales  beneath  the  ardors 
of  the  sun,  was  yielding  the  two  miners  a  good  supply 
of  gold.  Their  pits  had  honeycombed  the  stream's 
banks  far  up  and  down.  Now,  in  September,  the 
water  had  dwindled  to  a  silver  thread,  and  they  had 
dammed  it  near  the  rocker  into  a  miniature  lake,  into 
which  Fletcher — Moreau's  partner — plunged  his  dip 
per  with  untiring  regularity,  at  the  same  time  moving 
the  rocker  which  filled  the  hot  silence  of  the  canon 
with  its  lazy  monotonous  rattle. 

They  had  been  working  with  little  cessation  since 
early  June.  The  richness  of  their  claim  and  the  pros 
pect  that  the  first  snows  would  put  an  end  to  labors 
and  profits  had  spurred  them  to  unremitting  exertion. 
In  a  box  under  Moreau's  bunk  there  were  six  small 
buckskin  sacks  of  dust,  joint  profits  of  the  summer's 
toil. 

Moreau,  a  muscular,  fair-haired  giant  of  a  man,  was 
that  familiar  figure  of  the  early  days — the  gentleman 
miner.  He  was  a  New  Englander  of  birth  and  educa 
tion,  who  had  come  to  California  in  the  first  rush,  with 
a  little  fortune  wherewith  to  make  a  great  one.  Luck 
had  not  been  with  him.  This  was  his  first  taste  of 
success.  Five  months  before  he  had  picked  up  a 
"pard"  in  Sacramento,  and  after  the  careless  fashion 
of  the  time,  when  no  one  sought  to  inquire  too  closely 
into  another's  antecedents,  joined  forces  with  him 
and  spent  a  wandering  spring,  prospecting  from  bar 
to  bar  and  camp  to  camp.  The  casual  words  of  an 
Indian  had  directed  them  to  the  canon  where  now  the 
creak  of  their  rocker  filled  the  hot,  drowsy  days. 
*Of  Harney  Fletcher,  Moreau  knew  nothing.  He 


STRIKING   A    BARGAIN  9 

had  met  him  in  a  lodging-house  in  Sacramento,  and  the 
partnership  proved  to  be  a  successful  one.  What  the 
New  Englander  furnished  in  money,  the  other  made 
up  in  practical  experience  and  general  handiness.  It 
was  Fletcher  who  had  constructed  the  rocker  on  an 
improved  model  of  his  own.  His  had  been  the  direct 
ing  brain  as  well  as  the  assisting  hand  which  had 
built  the  cabin  of  logs  that  surveyed  the  stream-bed 
from  a  knoll  above.  The  last  remnants  of  Moreau's 
fortune  had  stocked  it  well,  and  there  were  two  good 
horses  in  the  brush  shed  behind  it. 

It  was  now  September,  and  the  leaves  of  the  aspens 
that  grew  along  the  stream-bed  were  yellowing.  But 
the  air  was  warm  and  golden  with  sunshine.  Above, 
in  the  high  places  of  the  Sierra,  where  the  emigrant 
trail  crept  along  the  edges  of  ravines  and  crawled 
up  the  mighty  flank  of  the  wall  that  shuts  the  garden 
of  California  from  the  desert  beyond,  the  snow  was 
already  deep.  Fletcher,  who  had  gone  into  Hangtown 
the  week  before  for  provisions,  had  come  back  full  of. 
stories  of  the  swarms  of  emigrants  pouring  down  the 
main  road  and  its  branching  trails,  higgledy-piggledy, 
pell-mell,  hungry,  gaunt,  half  clad,  in  their  wild 
rush  to  enter  the  land  of  promise. 

There  was  no  suggestion  of  winter  here.  The  hot 
air  was  steeped  in  the  aromatic  scents  that  the  sun 
draws  from  the  mighty  pines  which  clothe  the  foot 
hills.  At  midday  the  little  gulley  where  the  men 
worked  was  heavy  with  them.  All  about  them  was 
strangely  silent.  The  pines  rising  rank  on  rank  stirred 
to  no  passing  breezes.  There  was  no  bird  note,  and 
the  stream  had  shrunk  so  that  its  spring-time  song  had 


io  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

become  a  whisper.  Heat  and  silence  held  the  long 
days,  when  the  red  dust  lay  motionless  on  the  trail 
above,  and  the  noise  made  by  the  rocker  sounded 
strangely  intrusive  and  loud  in  the  enchanted  stillness 
that  held  the  landscape. 

On  an  afternoon  like  this  the  men  were  working  in 
the  stream-bed — Moreau  in  the  pit,  Fletcher  at  his 
place  by  the  rocker.  There  was  no  conversation  be 
tween  them.  The  picture-like  dumbness  of  their  sur 
roundings  seemed  to  have  communicated  itself  to  them. 
Far  above,  glittering  against  the  blue,  the  white  peaks 
of  the  Sierra  looked  down  on  them  from  remote,  aerial 
heights.  The  tiny  thread  of  water  gleamed  in  its 
wide,  unoccupied  bed.  Save  the  men,  the  only  moving 
thing  in  sight  was  a  hawk  that  hung  poised  in  the 
sky  above,  its  winged  shadow  floating  forward  and 
pausing  on  the  slopes  of  the  gulch. 

Into  this  spellbound  silence  a  sound  suddenly  broke 
— a  sound  unexpected  and  unwished  for — that  of  a 
human  voice.  It  was  a  man's,  harsh  and  loud,  evi 
dently  addressing  cattle.  With  it  came  the  creak  of 
wheels.  The  two  partners  listened,  amazed  and  irres 
olute.  The  trail  that  passed  their  cabin  was  an  almost 
unknown  offshoot  from  the  main  highway.  Then,  the 
sounds  growing  clearer,  they  scrambled  up  the  bank. 
Coming  down  the  road  they  saw  the  curved  top  of  a 
prairie  schooner  that  formed  a  background  for  the 
forms  of  two  skeleton  horses,  beside  which  walked  a 
man  who  urged  them  on  with  shouts  and  blows. 
Wagon  and  horses  were  enveloped  in  a  cloud  of  red 
dust. 

At  the  moment  that  the  miners  saw  this  unwelcome 


STRIKING   A    BARGAIN  11 

sight,  one  of  the  wretched  beasts  stumbled,  and  pitch 
ing  forward,  fell  with  what  sounded  like  a  human 
groan.  The  man,  with  an  oath,  went  to  it  and  gave 
it  a  kick.  But  it  was  too  far  spent  to  rally,  and  set 
tling  on  its  side,  lay  gasping.  A  woman,  stout  and 
sunburned,  ran  round  from  the  back  of  the  cart,  with 
a  face  of  angry  consternation.  As  Moreau  approached, 
he  heard  her  say  to  the  man  who,  with  oaths  and  blows, 
was  attempting  to  drag  the  horse  to  its  feet : 

"Oh,  it  ain't  no  use  doing  that.  Don't  you  see  it's 
dying?" 

Moreau  saw  that  she  was  right.  The  animal  was  in 
its  death  throes.  As  he  came  up  he  said,  without  pre 
liminaries  : 

"Take  off  its  harness,  the  poor  brute's  done  for," 
and  began  to  unbuckle  the  rags  of  harness  which  held 
it  to  the  wagon. 

The  man  and  woman  turned,  startled,  and  saw 
him.  Looking  back  they  saw  Fletcher,  who  was 
coming  slowly,  and  evidently  not  very  willingly, 
forward.  The  sight  of  the  exhausted  pioneers  was 
a  too  familiar  one  to  interest  him.  The  dying  horse 
claimed  a  lazy  cast  of  his  indifferent  eye.  Moreau 
and  the  man  loosed  the  harness,  lifted  the  pole,  and  let 
the  creature  lie  free  from  encumbrance.  The  other 
horse,  freed,  too,  stood  drooping,  too  spent  to  move 
from  where  it  had  stopped.  If  other  testimony  were 
needed  of  the  terrible  journey  they  were  ending,  one 
saw  it  in  the  gaunt  face  of  the  man,  scorched  by  sun, 
seamed  with  lines,  with  a  fringe  of  ragged  beard,  and 
long  locks  of  unkempt  hair  hanging  from  beneath  his 
miserable  hat. 


12  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

This  stoppage  of  his  journey  with  the  promised 
land  in  sight  seemed  to  exasperate  him  to  a  point 
where  he  evidently  feared  to  speak.  With  eyes  full 
of  savage  despair  he  stood  looking  at  the  horse.  Both 
he  and  the  woman  seemed  so  overpowered  by  the 
calamity  that  they  had  no  attention  to  give  to  the 
two  strangers,  but  stood  side  by  side,  staring  morosely 
at  the  animal. 

"What'll  we  do?"  she  said  hopelessly.  "Spotty,"  in 
dicating  the  other  horse,  "ain't  no  use  alone." 

Moreau  spoke  up  encouragingly. 

"Why  don't  you  leave  the  wagon  and  the  other 
horse  here?  You  can  walk  into  Hangtown  by  easy 
stages.  The  Porter  ranch  is  only  twelve  miles  from 
here  and  you  can  stay  there  all  night.  The  poor  beast 
can't  do  much  more,  and  we'll  feed  it  and  take  care  of 
your  other  things  while  you're  gone." 

"Oh,  damn  it,  we  can't !"  said  the  man  furiously. 

As  if  in  explanation  of  this  remark,  a  woman  sud 
denly  appeared  at  the  open  front  of  the  wagon.  She 
had  evidently  been  lying  within  it,  and  had  not  risen 
until  now. 

When  Moreau  looked  at  her  he  experienced  a  vio 
lent  thrill  of  pity,  that  the  evident  sufferings  of  the 
others  had  not  evoked.  He  was  a  man  of  a  deeply 
tender  and  sympathetic  nature  toward  all  that  was 
helpless  and  weak.  As  his  glance  met  the  face  of  this 
woman,  he  thought  she  was  the  most  piteous  object 
he  had  ever  seen. 

"You'd  better  come  into  the  cabin,"  he  said,  "and 
see  what  you  can  do.  You  can't  go  on  now,  and  you 
look  pretty  well  used  up." 


STRIKING   A   BARGAIN  13 

The  man  gave  a  grunt  of  assent,  and  taking  the 
other  horse  by  the  head  began  to  lead  it  toward  the 
cabin,  being  noticeably  careful  to  steer  it  out  of  the 
way  of  all  stumbling-blocks.  The  woman  in  the  sun- 
bonnet  called  to  her  companion  in  the  wagon : 

"Come,  Lucy,  get  a  move  on !  We're  going  to  stop 
and  rest." 

Thus  addressed,  the  woman  moved  to  the  back  of 
the  cart,  drew  the  flap  aside  and  slipped  out.  She 
came  behind  the  others,  and  Moreau,  looking  back, 
saw  that  she  walked  slowly,  as  if  feeble,  or  in  pain. 

Advancing  to  the  sunbonneted  figure  in  front  of 
him  he  said,  with  a  backward  jerk  of  his  head: 
"What's  the  matter  with  her?  Is  she  sick?" 

The  woman  gave  an  indifferent  glance  backward. 
Like  the  man,  she  seemed  completely  preoccupied  by 
their  disaster. 

"Not  now,"  she  answered,  "but  she  has  been.  But 
good  Lord !" — with  a  sudden  burst  of  angry  bitterness 
— "women  like  her  ain't  meant  to  take  them  sort  of 
journeys.  If  it  weren't  for  her,  Jake  and  I  could  go 
on  all  right." 

She  relapsed  into  silence  as  the  cabin  revealed  itself 
through  the  trees.  It  appeared  to  interest  her,  and  she 
went  to  the  door  and  looked  in. 

It  was  the  typical  miner's  cabin  of  the  period,  con 
sisting  of  a  single  room  with  two  bunks.  Opposite 
the  doorway  was  the  wide-mouthed  chimney,  a  slab 
of  rock  before  it  doing  duty  as  hearthstone.  There 
was  an  armchair  formed  of  a  barrel,  cushioned  with 
red  flannel  and  mounted  on  rockers.  Moreau 's  bunk 
was  covered  with  a  miner's  blanket,  and  the  ineradica- 


14  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

ble  habits  of  the  gentleman  spoke  in  the  very  simple 
but  sufficient  toilet  accessories  that  stood  on  a  shelf 
under  a  tiny  square  of  looking-glass.  Over  the  roof 
a  great  pine  spread  its  boughs,  and  in  passing  through 
these  the  slightest  breaths  of  air  made  soft  eolian  mur- 
murings.  To  the  pioneers,  the  wild,  rough  place 
looked  the  ideal  of  comfort  and  luxury. 

A  small  spring  bubbled  up  near  the  roots  of  the 
pine  and  trickled  across  the  space  in  front  of  the 
cabin.  To  this,  by  common  consent,  the  party  made 
its  way.  The  exhausted  horse  plunged  its  nose  in  the 
cool  current  and  drank  and  snorted  and  drank  again. 
The  elder  woman  knelt  down  and  laved  her  face  and 
neck  and  even  the  top  of  her  head  in  the  water.  The 
man  stood  looking  with  a  moody  eye  at  his  broken 
animal,  and  joined  by  Fletcher,  they  talked  over  its 
condition.  The  miner,  versed  in  this  as  in  all  prac 
tical  matters,  deemed  the  beast  incapacitated  for  jour 
neys  of  any  length  for  some  time  to  come.  Both  ani 
mals  had  been  driven  to  the  limit  of  their  strength. 

The  pioneer  asserted : 

"I  had  to  get  acrost  before  the  snows  blocked  us, 
and  they're  heavy  up  there  now,"  with  a  nod  of  his 
head  toward  the  mountains  above;  "then  I  wanted  to 
get  down  into  the  settlements  as  soon's  I  could.  I 
knew  there  weren't  two  more  days  work  in  'em,  but 
I  calk'lated  they'd  get  me  in.  After  that  it  didn't 
matter." 

"The  only  thing  for  you  to  do  is  to  walk  into  Hang- 
town,  buy  a  mule  there,  and  come  back." 

The  man  made  a  despairing  gesture. 


STRIKING   A   BARGAIN  15 

"How  the  hell  can  I,  with  her?"  he  said,  indicating 
the  younger  woman. 

Fletcher  turned  round  and  surveyed  her  with  a  cold, 
exploring  eye  where  she  had  sunk  down  on  the  roots 
of  the  pine,  with  her  back  against  its  trunk. 

"She  looks  pretty  well  tuckered  out,"  he  said.  "Your 
wife?" 

"Yes." 

"And  the  other  one's  your  sister?"  he  continued 
with  glib  curiosity. 

"She's  my  wife,  too." 

The  inquirer,  who  was  used  to  such  plurality  on  the 
part  of  the  Utah  emigrants,  gave  a  whistle  and  said : 

"Mormons,  eh?" 

The  man  nodded. 

Meantime  Moreau  had  entered  the  cabin  to  get  some 
food  and  drink  to  offer  the  sick  woman.  In  a  few 
moments  he  reappeared  carrying  a  tin  cup  containing 
whisky  diluted  with  water  from  the  spring,  and  ap 
proached  the  woman  sitting  by  the  tree  trunk.  Her 
eyes  were  closed  and  she  presented  a  deathlike  appear 
ance.  The  shawl  she  had  worn  round  her  shoulders 
had  fallen  back  and  disclosed  a  small  bundle  that  she 
held  with  a  loose  carefulness.  The  man  noticed  the 
way  her  arms  were  disposed  about  it  and  wondered. 
Coming  to  a  standstill  before  her,  he  said : 

"I've  brought  you  something  that'll  brace  you  up. 
Would  you  like  to  try  it  ?" 

She  raised  her  lids  and  looked  at  him,  and  then  at 
the  cup.  As  he  met  her  glance  he  noticed  that  her 
eyes  were  a  clear  brown  like  a  dog's,  and  for  the 


16  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

first  time  he  realized  that  she  might  be  young.  She 
stretched  out  her  hand  obediently  and  taking  the  cup 
drank  a  little,  then  silently  gave  it  back. 

"You,'ve  had  a  pretty  rough  time  I  guess,"  he  said, 
holding  the  cup  which  he  intended  to  give  her  again 
in  a  minute. 

She  nodded.  Then  suddenly  the  tears  began  to 
well  out  of  her  eyes,  quantities  of  tears  that  ran  in  a 
flood  over  her  cheeks.  She  did  not  sob  or  attempt  to 
hide  her  face,  but  leaning  her  head  against  the  tree,  let 
the  tears  flow  as  though  lost  to  everything  but  her 
sense  of  misery. 

"Oh,  poor  thing!  poor  thing!"  he  exclaimed  in  a 
burst  of  sympathy,  "you're  half  dead.  Here  take  some 
more  of  this,"  and  he  pressed  the  cup  into  her  hand, 
not  knowing  what  else  to  do  for  her. 

She  took  it,  and  then,  through  the  tears,  he  saw  her 
cast  a  look  of  furtive  alarm  toward  her  husband. 
She  was  within  his  line  of  vision  and  tried  to  shift  her 
self  behind  Moreau. 

With  a  sensation  of  angry  disgust  he  understood 
that  she  feared  this  unkempt  and  haggard  creature 
to  whom  she  belonged.  He  moved  so  that  he  sheltered 
her  and  watched  her  try  to  drink  again.  Bu,t  her  tears 
blinded  her  and  she  handed  the  cup  back  with  a  shak 
ing  hand. 

"It's  been  too  much,"  she  gasped.  "If  I  could  only 
have  died !  My  boy  did.  Out  there  on  them  awful 
plains  where  there  ain't  a  tree  and  it's  hot  like  a  fur 
nace.  And  they  buried  him  there — Bessie  and  he." 

"Bessie  and  he?"  he  repeated  vaguely,  his  pity  en 
tirely  preoccupying  his  mind  for  the  moment. 


STRIKING   A    BARGAIN  17 

"Yes,  Bessie, — the  second  wife.    I'm  the  first." 

"Oh,"  he  said,  comprehending,  "you're  from  Utah?" 

"Not  me,"  she  answered  quickly,  "I'm  from  Indiana. 
I'm  no  Mormon.  He  wasn't  neither  till  he  married 
Bessie.  He  wanted  her  and  he  did  it." 

Here  she  was  suddenly  interrupted  by  a  weak  whin 
ing  cry  from  the  bundle  that  one  arm  still  curved 
about.  She  bent  her  head  and  drew  back  the  covering, 
and  Moreau  saw  a  strange  wizened  face  and  a  tiny, 
claw-like  hand  feeling  feebly  about.  He  had  never 
seen  a  very  young  infant  before  and  it  seemed  to  him 
a  weirdly  hideous  thing. 

"Is  it  yours?"  he  said,  amazed. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  "it  was  born  in  the  desert 
three  weeks  ago." 

Her  tears  were  dry,  and  she  bent  over  the  feeble 
thing  that  squirmed  weakly  and  made  small,  cat-like 
noises,  with  something  in  her  attitude  that  changed 
her  and  made  her  still  a  woman  who  had  a  life  above 
her  miseries. 

"Wouldn't  you  like  to  go  into  the  cabin?"  said  the 
man,  feeling  suddenly  abashed  by  his  ignorance  of  all 
pertaining  to  this  infinitesimal  bit  of  life.  "You  might 
want  to  wash  it  or  put  it  to  sleep  or  give  it  something 
to  eat.  There's  a  basin  and  soap  and — er — some  flour 
and  bacon  in  there." 

The  woman  responded  to  the  invitation  with  a  slight 
show  of  alacrity.  She  stumbled  as  she  rose,  and  he 
took  her  arm  and  guided  her.  At  the  cabin  door  he 
left  her  and  as  he  passed  to  the  back  where  the  rest 
of  the  party  had  gone,  the  baby's  feeble  cry,  weak,  but 
insistent,  followed  him. 


i8  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

The  emigrant,  Bessie  and  Fletcher,  had  repaired  to 
the  brush  shed  where  Moreau's  horses  were  stabled  and 
had  put  the  half-dead  Spotty  under  its  shelter.  Here 
the  exhausted  beast  had  lain  down.  The  trio  had  then 
betaken  themselves  to  a  bare  spot  on  the  shaded  slope 
of  the  knoll  and  were  eating  ship's  biscuits  and  drink 
ing  whisky  and  water  from  a  tin  cup,  that  circulated 
from  hand  to  hand.  As  Moreau  approached  he  could 
hear  his  partner  volubly  expatiating  on  the  barren 
ness  of  the  stream-beds  in  the  vicinity.  The  stranger 
was  listening  to  him  with  a  cogitating  eye,  his  seamed, 
weather-worn  face  set  in  an  expression  of  frowning 
attention.  Her  hunger  appeased,  Bessie  had  curled  up 
on  her  side,  and  with  her  sunbonnet  still  on,  had  fallen 
into  a  deep,  healthy  sleep. 

Moreau  joined  them,  and  listened  with  mingled  sur 
prise  and  amusement  to  Fletcher's  glib  lies.  Then, 
when  his  partner's  fluency  was  exhausted,  he  ques 
tioned  the  emigrant  on  his  trip.  The  man's  answers 
were  short  and  non-committal.  He  seemed  in  a  morose, 
savage  state  at  his  ill  luck,  his  mind  still  engrossed  by 
the  question  of  moving  on. 

"If  I'd  money,"  he  said,  "I'd  give  you  anything  you'd 
ask  for  them  two  horses  'er  your'n  in  the  shed.  Bu,t 
I  ain't  a  thing  to  give — not  a  red." 

"Your  wife,  your  other  wife,"  said  Moreau,  "doesn't 
seem  to  me  fit  to  go  on.  She's  dead  beat." 

The  man  gave  an  angry  snort. 

"She's  been  like  that  pretty  near  the  whole  way,"  he 
said.  "Everything's  been  put  back  because  of  her." 

He  relapsed  into  moody  silence  and  then  said  sud 
denly:  "We're  goin'  if  she's  got  to  walk." 


STRIKING   A    BARGAIN  19 

Moreau  went  back  to  the  cabin.  They  had  half 
killed  the  woman  already ;  now  if  they  insisted  on  her 
walking  the  wretched  creature  might  collapse  alto 
gether.  Would  they  leave  her  on  the  mountain  roads, 
he  wondered? 

He  reached  the  cabin  door,  knocked  and  heard  her 
answering  "come  in."  She  was  sitting  on  an  upturned 
box  beside  the  bunk  on  which  the  baby  slept.  Her  sun- 
bonnet  was  off,  and  he  noticed  that  she  had  bright  hair, 
rippled  and  thick,  and  of  the  same  reddish-brown  color 
as  her  eyes.  She  had  washed  away  the  traces  of  her 
tears,  but  her  clothes,  hardly  sufficient  covering  for 
her  lean,  toil-worn  body,  were  dirty  and  ragged.  No 
beggar  he  had  ever  seen  in  the  distant  New  England 
town  where  he  had  spent  his  boyhood,  had  presented 
a  more  miserable  appearance.  She  looked  timidly  at 
him  and  rose  from  the  box,  pushing  it  toward  him. 

"I  put  the  baby  on  the  burik,"  she  said  apologetic 
ally,  "but  I  can  hold  her." 

"Oh,  don't  disturb  her,"  he  said  quickly.  "It's  the 
only  place  you  could  have  put  her."  Then,  seeing  her 
standing,  he  said,  "Why  don't  you  sit  down  ?" 

She  sat  charily  and  evidently  ill  at  ease. 
.    "They've  been  eating  out  there,"  he  said,  "and  I 
thought  you  might  like  something,  too.    There's  some 
stuff  over  there  in  the  corner  if  you'll  wait  a  moment." 

He  went  to  the  corner  where  the  supplies  were 
stored  and  rifled  them  for  more  ship's  biscuit  and  a 
wedge  of  cheese,  a  delicacy  which  Fletcher  had 
brought  from  Hangtown  on  his  last  visit,  and  which 
he  carefully  refrained  from  offering  to  the  hungry 
emigrants.  Coming  back  with  these  he  drew  out  an- 


20  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

other  box  and  spread  them  on  it  before  her.  She 
looked  on  in  heavy,  silent  surprise.  When  he  had  fin 
ished  he  said : 

"Now — fall  to.  You  want  food  as  much  as  any 
thing." 

She  made  no  effort  to  eat,  and  he  said,  disappointed : 
"Don't  you  want  it?  Oh,  make  a  try." 

She  "made  a  try,"  and  bit  off  a  piece  of  cracker, 
while  he  again  retired  to  the  supply  corner  for  the  tin 
cup  and  the  whisky.  He  tried  to  step  softly  so  as  not 
to  wake  the  child,  and  there  was  something  ludicrous 
in  the  sight  of  this  vast,  bearded  man,  with  his  mighty, 
half-bared  arms  and  muscular  throat,  trying  to  be 
noiseless,  with  as  much  success  as  one  might  expect 
of  a  bear. 

Suddenly,  in  the  midst  of  her  repast,  the  woman 
broke  down  completely;  and,  with  bowed  head,  she 
was  shaken  by  a  tempest  of  some  violent  emotion.  It 
was  not  like  her  tears  of  an  hour  before,  which  seemed 
merely  an  indication  of  physical  exhaustion.  This  was 
an  expression  of  spiritual  tumult.  Sobs  rent  her  and 
she  rocked  back  and  forth  struggling  with  some  fierce 
paroxysm. 

Moreau,  cup  in  hand,  gazed  at  her  in  distracted 
helplessness. 

"Come  now,  eat  a  little,"  he  said  coaxingly,  not 
knowing  what  else  to  suggest,  and  then  getting  no  re 
sponse:  "Suppose  you  lie  down  on  the  bunk?  Rest 
is  what  you  want." 

"Oh,  I  can't  go  on,"  she  groaned.  "I  can't.  How 
can  I  ?  Oh,  it's  too  much !  I  can't  go  on." 

He  was  silent  before  this  ill  for  which  he  had  no 


STRIKING   A    BARGAIN  si 

remedy,  and  she  wailed  again  in  the  agony  of  her  spirit : 

"I  can't,  I  can't.  If  I  could  only  die!  But  now 
there's  the  baby,  and  I  can't  even  die.'' 

He  got  up  feeling  sick  at  heart  at  sight  of  this  hope 
less  despair.  What  could  he  suggest  to  the  unfortu 
nate  creature?  He  felt  that  anything  he  could  say 
would  be  an  insult  in  the  face  of  such  a  position. 

"Oh  God,  why  can't  we  die?"  she  groaned — "why 
can't  we  die?" 

As  she  said  the  words  the  sound  of  approaching 
voices  came  through  the  open  door.  Her  husband's 
struck  through  her  agony  and  froze  it.  She  stiffened 
and  lifted  her  face  full  of  an  animal  look  of  listening. 
Moreau  noticed  her  blunt  and  knotted  hands,  pitiful 
in  their  record  of  toil,  as  she  held  them  up  in  the  trans 
fixed  attitude  of  strained  attention. 

"What  now?"  she  said  to  herself. 

The  pioneer,  Fletcher  and  Bessie  came  slowly  round 
the  corner  of  the  cabin.  Bessie  looked  sleepily  anxious, 
Fletcher  lazily  amused.  As  Moreau  stepped  out  of 
the  doorway  toward  them  he  realized  that  they  had 
come  to  some  decision. 

"Well,"  said  the  man,  "we  got  to  travel." 

"You're  going  on  ?"  said  Moreau.  "How  about  the 
wagon  ?" 

"We're  goin'  to  leave  the  wagon,  and  I'll  come  back 
for  it  from  Hangtown.  It's  the  only  thing  to  do." 

"And  the  horse?" 

"He  calk'lates,"  said  Fletcher,  "to  mount  his  wife — 
the  peaked  one — on  the  horse  and  take  her  along  till 
one  or  other  of  'em  drops." 


22  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Take  your  wife  on  that  horse?"  exclaimed  Moreau. 
"Why,  it  can't  go  two  miles." 

"Well,  maybe  it  can't,"  returned  the  man  with  an 
immovable  face. 

There  was  a  pause.  Moreau  was  conscious  that  the 
woman  was  standing  behind  him  in  the  doorway.  He 
could  hear  her  breathing. 

"Come  on,  Lucy,"  said  the  husband.  "We  got  to 
move  on  sometime." 

Here  the  second  wife  spoke  up : 

"I  don't  see  how  the  horse  is  goin'  to  get  Lucy 
twelve  miles,  and  this  man  says  the  first  place  we  can 
stop  is  twelve  miles  farther  along." 

"Don't  you  begin  with  your  everlasting  objections," 
said  the  husband,  furiously.  "Get  the  horse." 

The  woman  evidently  knew  the  time  had  passed  for 
trifling  and  turned  away  toward  the  brush  shed. 
Fletcher  followed  her  with  a  grin.  The  situation  ap 
pealed  to  his  sense  of  humor,  and  he  was  curious  as 
to  the  outcome. 

Moreau  and  the  emigrant  were  left  facing  each 
other,  with  the  first  wife  in  the  doorway. 

"Your  wife's  not  able  to  go  on,"  said  the  miner — his 
manner  becoming  suddenly  authoritative;  "no  more 
than  your  horse  is." 

"Maybe  not,"  said  the  other,  "but  they're  both  goin' 
to  try." 

"But  can't  you  see  the  horse  can't  carry  her?  She 
certainly  can't  walk  into  Hangtown,  or  even  to  Porter's 
Ranch." 

"No,  I  can't  see.  And  how's  it  come  to  be  your 
business — what  they  can  do  or  what  they  can't  ?" 


"  YOUR    WIFE'S   NOT    AliI.E   TO    GO    OX,  NO    MORE    THAN    YOUR 
HORSE   IS  " 


STRIKING   A   BARGAIN  23 

"It's  any  one's  business  to  prevent  a  woman  frtAn 
being  half  killed." 

"Since  you  seem  to  think  so  much  about  her,  why 
don't  you  keep  her  here  yourself  ?" 

The  man  spoke  with  a  savage  sneer,  his  eyes  full  of 
steely  defiance. 

Before  he  had  realized  the  full  import  of  his  words, 
burning  with  rage  against  the  brutal  tyrant  to  whom 
the  wife  was  of  no  more  moment  than  the  horse, 
Moreau  answered: 

"I  will— let  her  stay !" 

There  was  a  moment's  pause.  The  emigrant's  face, 
dark  with  rage,  was  suddenly  lightened  by  a  curiously 
alert  expression  of  intelligence.  He  looked  at  the 
woman  in  the  background  and  then  at  the  miner. 

"I'm  not  giving  anything  away  just  now,"  he  an 
swered.  "When  she's  well  she's  of  use.  But  I'll  swap 
her  for  your  two  horses." 

In  the  heat  of  his  indignation  and  disgust  Moreau 
turned  -and  looked  at  the  woman.  She  was  leaning 
against  the  door  frame,  chalk-white,  and  staring  at 
him.  She  made  no  sound,  but  her  dog-like  eyes  seemed 
to  speak  for  his  mercy  more  eloquently  than  her  tongue 
ever  could. 

"All  right,"  he  said  quietly.    "It's  a  bargain." 

"Done,"  said  the  emigrant.  "You'll  find  her  a  good 
worker  when  she  pulls  herself  together.  You  stay  on 
here,  Lucy.  Bessie,"  he  sang  out,  "bring  around  them 
horses." 

Under  the  phlegm  of  his  manner  there  was  a  sud 
den  expanding  heat  of  shame  that  he  strove  to  hide. 
The  woman  neither  stirred  nor  spoke,  and  Moreau 


\24  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 


^is-back  to  her,  struggling  with  his  passion 
against  the  man  who  had  been  her  owner.  The  im 
pulse  under  which  he  had  spoken  had  full  possession 
of  him,  and  his  main  feeling  was  his  desire  to  rid  him 
self  of  the  emigrant  and  his  other  wife. 

"Here,"  he  said,  "go  on  and  tell  them  that  you'll 
take  the  horses.  Hurry  up  !" 

The  man  needed  no  second  bidding  and  made  off 
rapidly  round  the  corner  of  the  cabin. 

Moreau  and  the  woman  were  silent.  For  the  mo 
ment  he  had  forgotten  her  presence,  engrossed  by  the 
rage  that  filled  his  warmly  generous  nature.  Instinc 
tively  he  followed  the  man  to  the  angle  of  the  cabin 
whence  he  could  command  the  brush  shed.  The  trio 
were  standing  there,  Fletcher  and  the  woman  listening 
amazed  to  the  emigrant's  explanation.  Moreau  turned 
back  to  the  cabin  and  his  eye  fell  on  the  woman  in 
the  doorway. 

"Well,"  he  said  —  trying  to  speak  easily  —  "you  don't 
mind  staying  on  here  for  a  while,  do  you?  I  guess 
we  can  make  you  comfortable." 

She  made  no  answer,  and  after  waiting  a  moment  he 
said: 

"When  you  get  stronger  I'll  be  able  to  find  you  some 
thing  to  do  in  Hangtown.  You  know  you  couldn't 
go  on,  feeling  so  bad.  And  this  air  round  here"  — 
with  a  wave  of  his  hand  to  the  surrounding  pines  — 
"will  brace  you  up  finely." 

She  gave  a  murmured  sound  of  assent,  but  more 
than  this  made  no  reply.  Only  her  dog-like  eyes  again 
seemed  to  speak.  Their  miserable  look  of  gratitude 


STRIKING   A   BARGAIN  25 

made  Moreau  uncomfortable  and  he  could  think  of 
nothing  more  to  say. 

The  sound  of  the  trio  advancing  from  the  shed  came 
as  a  welcome  interruption.  They  appeared  round  the 
corner  of  the  cabin,  leading  the  miner's  two  powerful 
and  well-fed  horses.  Evidently  the  situation  had  been 
explained.  Fletcher's  face  was  enigmatical.  The  hu- 
morousness  of  the  novel  exchange  had  come  a  little 
too  close  to  his  own  comfort  to  be  quite  as  full  of 
zest  as  it  had  been  earlier  in  the  afternoon.  He  had 
insisted  that  the  emigrant  leave  his  horse,  which  the 
man  had  no  objection  to  doing.  Bessie  looked  flushed 
and  excited.  Moreau  thought  he  detected  shame  and 
disapproval  under  her  agitated  demeanor.  But  to  her 
work  was  a  matter  of  second  nature.  She  put  the 
horses  to  the  tongue  of  the  wagon  and  buckled  the 
rags  of  harness  together  before  she  turned  for  a  last 
word  to  her  companion.  This  was  characteristically 
brief : 

"So  long,  Lucy,"  she  said,  "let's  see  the  baby  again." 

It  was  shown  her  and  she  kissed  it  on  the  forehead 
with  some  tenderness.  Then  she  climbed  on  the  wheel 
of  the  wagon  and  took  from  the  interior  a  bundle  tied 
up  in  printed  calico  and  laid  it  on  the  ground.  It  con 
tained  all  the  personal  belongings  and  wardrobe  of  the 
first  wife.  There  were  a  few  murmured  sentences  be 
tween  them  and  then  she  turned  to  ascend  to  her  seat. 
But  before  she  had  fairly  mounted  a  sudden  impulse 
seized  her  and  whirled  her  back  to  give  Lucy  a  good- 
by  kiss. 

There  was  more  feeling  in  this  action  than  in  any- 


26  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

thing  that  had  passed  between  the  trio  during  the  after 
noon.  The  two  wives  had  been  women  who  had  mu 
tually  suffered.  There  were  tears  in  Bessie's  eyes  as 
she  climbed  to  her  place.  The  husband  never  turned 
his  head  in  the  direction  of  his  first  wife.  But  as  he 
took  the  reins  and  prepared  to  start  the  team,  he  called : 

"Good  by,  Lucy." 

He  clucked  at  the  horses,  and  the  wagon  moved 
forward  amid  a  stir  of  red  dust.  The  woman  on  the 
front  seat  drew  her  sunbonnet  over  her  face.  The 
man  beside  her  looked  neither  to  the  right  nor  the 
left,  but  stared  out  over  his  newly-acquired  team  with 
an  impassively  set  visage.  His  long  whip  curled  out 
with  a  hiss,  the  spirited  animals  gave  a  forward  bound, 
and  the  wagon  went  clattering  and  jolting  down  the 
trail. 

Moreau  stood  watching  its  canvas  arch  go  swinging 
downward  under  the  dark  boughs  of  the  pines  and  the 
flickering  foliage  of  the  aspens.  He  watched  until  a 
bend  in  the  road  hid  it.  Then  he  turned  toward  the 
cabin.  Fletcher  was  standing  behind  him,  surveying 
him  with  a  cold  and  sardonic  eye : 

"Well,  you've  done  it !" 

"I  guess  I  have." 

"What  the  devil  are  you  going  to  do  with  her  ?" 

"Don't  know." 

"And  the  horses  gone ;  nothin'  but  that  busted  cayuse 
left!" 

They  stood  looking  at  each  other,  Fletcher  angrily 
incredulous,  Moreau  smilingly  deprecating  and  apolo 
getic. 

As  they  stood  thus,  neither  knowing  what  to  say, 


STRIKING   A    BARGAIN  27 

the  emigrant's  wife  appeared  at  the  doorway  of  the 
cabin. 

"I'll  get  your  supper  now  if  it's  the  right  time,"  she 
said  timidly. 


CHAPTER   III 

HE   RIDES   AWAY 

"Alas,  my  Lord,  my  life  is  not  a  thing 
Worthy  your  noble  thoughts !    'Tis  not  a  life, 
'Tis  but  a  piece  of  childhood  thrown  away." 

— BEAUMONT  AND  FLETCHER. 

That  night  the  two  miners  rolled  themselves  in  their 
blankets  and  lay  down  on  the  expanse  of  slippery 
grass  under  the  pine.  Moreau  did  not  sleep  soon. 
The  day's  incidents  were  the  first  interruption  to  the 
monotony  of  their  uneventful  summer. 

Now,  the  strong  man,  lying  on  his  back,  looking  at 
the  large  white  stars  between  the  pine  boughs,  thought 
of  what  he  had  done  with  perplexity,  but  without  re 
gret.  In  the  still  peacefulness  of  the  night  he  turned 
over  in  his  mind  what  he  should  do  when  the  woman 
grew  stronger.  Women  were  rare  in  the  mining  dis 
tricts,  and  he  knew  that  the  emigrant  wife  could  earn 
high  wages  as  a  servant  either  in  Hangtown  or  the 
growing  metropolis  of  Sacramento.  The  child  might 
hamper  her,  but  he  could  help  her  to  take  care  of  the 
child  until  she  got  fairly  on  her  feet.  He  had  nothing 
much  to  do  with  his  "dust."  Strong  and  young  and 
in  California,  that  always  meant  money  enough. 

So  he  thought,  pushing  uneasiness  from  his  mind. 
28 


HE   RIDES    AWAY  29 

Turning  on  his  hard  bed  he  could  see  the  dark  bulk  of 
the  cabin  with  a  glint  of  starlight  on  its  window. 
Above,  the  black  boughs  of  the  pine  made  a  network 
against  the  sky  sown  with  stars  of  an  extraordinary 
size  and  luster.  He  could  hear  the  river  sleepily  mur 
muring  to  itself.  Once,  far  off,  in  the  higher  moun 
tains,  the  shrill,  weird  cry  of  a  California  lion  tore  the 
silence.  He  rose  on  his  elbow,  looking  toward  the 
cabin.  The  sound  was  a  terrifying  one,  and  he  was 
prepared  to  see  the  woman  come  out,  frightened,  and 
had  the  words  of  reassurance  ready  to  call  to  her. 
But  there  was  no  movement  from  the  little  hut.  She 
was  evidently  wrapped  in  the  sleep  of  utter  fatigue. 

In  the  morning  he  was  down  at  a  basin  scooped  in 
the  stream  bed  making  a  hasty  toilet,  when  Fletcher, 
sleepy-eyed  and  yawning,  came  slipping  over  the  bank. 

"What  are  we  goin'  to  do  for  breakfast?"  he  said. 
"Is  that  purchase  o'  yourn  goin'  to  git  it?  She'd 
oughter  do  something  to  show  she's  worth  the  two 
best  horses  this  side  er  Hangtown." 

Moreau,  with  his  hair  and  beard  bedewed  with  his 
ducking,  was  about  to  answer  when  a  sound  from 
above  attracted  them. 

Lucy  was  standing  on  the  bank.  In  the  clear  morn 
ing  light  she  looked  white  and  pinched.  Her  wretched 
clothes  of  yesterday,  a  calico  sack  and  skirt,  were  aug 
mented  by  a  clean  apron  of  blue  check.  Her  skirt  was 
short  and  showed  her  feet  in  a  pair  of  rusty  shoes 
that  were  so  large  they  might  have  been  her  hus 
band's. 

"Are  you  comin'  to  breakfast?"  she  said;  "it's 
ready."  Then  she  disappeared.  The  men  looked  at 


30  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

each  other  and  Moreau  shook  the  drops  from  his  beard 
and  began  to  try  to  pat  his  hair  into  order.  The  civil 
izing  influence  of  woman — even  such  an  unlovely 
woman  as  the  emigrant's  wife — was  beginning  its 
work. 

Lucy  had  evidently  been  busy.  The  litter  that  had 
disfigured  the  ground  in  front  of  the  cabin  was  cleared 
away.  Through  the  open  door  and  window  a  current 
of  resinous  mountain  air  passed  which  counteracted 
the  effect  of  the  fire.  Nevertheless  she  had  evidently 
feared  its  heat  would  be  oppressive,  and  had  brought 
two  of  the  boxes  to  the  rude  bench  outside  the  door 
way,  and  on  these  the  breakfast  was  laid.  It  was  of 
the  simplest — fried  bacon,  coffee  and  hot  biscuits — 
but  the  scent  of  these,  hot  and  appetizing,  was  sweet 
in  the  nostrils  of  the  hungry  men. 

Sitting  on  the  bench,  they  fell  to  and  were  not  dis 
appointed.  The  emigrant's  wife  had  evidently  great 
skill  in  the  preparation  of  the  simple  food  of  the 
pioneer.  With  the  scanty  means  at  her  hand  she  had 
concocted  a  meal  that  to  the  men,  used  to  their  own 
primitive  cooking,  seemed  the  most  toothsome  they 
had  eaten  since  they  left  San  Francisco. 

As  she  retired  into  the  cabin,  Fletcher — his  mouth 
full  of  biscuit — said : 

"Well,  she  can  cook  anyway.  I  wonder  how  she 
gets  her  biscuits  so  all-fired  light?  They  ain't  all 
saleratus,  neither." 

Here  she  reappeared,  carrying  the  coffee-pot,  and, 
leaning  over  Fletcher's  shoulder,  prepared  to  refill  his 
tin  cup. 


HE    RIDES    AWAY  31 

"Put  it  down  on  the  table.  He  can  do  it  himself," 
commanded  Moreau  suddenly. 

She  set  it  down  instantly,  with  her  invariable 
frightened  obedience. 

"We're  not  used  to  being  waited  on,"  he  continued. 
"Now  you  sit  down  here," — he  rose  from  his  end  of  the 
bench  and  pointed  to  it, — "and  next  thing  we  want  I'll 
go  in  and  get  it.  You've  had  your  own  breakfast,  of 
course  ?" 

"No — I  ain't  had  mine  yet,"  she  answered  meekly. 

"Well,  why  ain't  you?"  he  almost  shouted.  "What 
d'ye  mean  by  giving  us  ours  first?" 

She  looked  terrified  and  shrank  a  little  on  the  bench. 
Moreau  had  a  dreadful  idea  that  for  a  moment  she  was 
afraid  of  being  struck. 

"Here,  take  this  cup,"  he  said,  giving  her  his, — "and 
this  bacon,"  picking  from  the  pan,  which  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  table,  the  choicest  pieces,  and  a  biscuit. 
"There — now  eat.  I'm  done." 

She  tried  to  eat,  but  it  was  evidently  difficult.  Her 
hands,  bent  and  disfigured  with  work,  shook.  At  in 
tervals  she  cast  a  furtive,  questioning  look  at  him 
where  he  sat  on  an  overturned  box,  eying  her  with 
good-humored  interest.  As  he  met  the  frightened 
dog-eyes  he  smiled  encouragingly,  but  she  was  grave 
and  returned  to  her  breakfast  with  nervous  haste. 

As  the  men  descended  the  bank  to  the  stream-bed, 
Fletcher  said : 

"Well,  she's  some  use  in  the  world.  That's  the  first 
decent  meal  we've  had  since  we  left  Sacramento." 

"She  didn't  eat  much  of  it  herself,"  returned  his 
pard  as  he  began  the  morning's  work. 


32  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

"She  is  the  gol-darnedest  lookin'  woman  I  ever  seen. 
Looks  as  if  she'd  been  fed  on  shavings.  I'll  lay  ten 
to  one  that  emigrant  cuss  she  b'longs  to  has  'most 
beat  the  life  out  er  her." 

Ascending  to  the  cabin  an  hour  later,  Moreau  came 
upon  the  woman,  washing  the  breakfast  dishes  in  the 
stream  that  trickled  from  the  spring.  She  did  not 
hear  him  approach,  and,  watching  her,  he  saw  that 
she  was  slow  and  feeble  in  her  movements.  The  sun 
spattered  down  through  the  pine  boughs  on  her  thick, 
brilliant-colored  hair,  and  on  the  nape  of  her  neck, 
where  the  skin  was  tanned  to  a  coarse,  russet  brown. 

"What  are  you  doing  that  for?"  he  said,  coming  to 
a  standstill  in  front  of  her.  "You  needn't  bother  about 
the  pans." 

"They'd  oughter  be  cleaned,"  she  answered. 

"You  don't  want  to  feel,"  he  said,  "that  you've  got 
to  work  all  the  time.  I  wanted  you  to  rest  up  a  bit. 
It's  a  good  place  to  rest  here." 

She  made  no  answer,  drying  the  tin  cups  on  a  piece 
of  flour  sack. 

"I  ain't  so  awful  tired,"  she  said  presently  in  a  low 
voice. 

"Well,  don't  you  worry  about  having  everything  so 
clean ;  they'll  do  anyway.  And  the  cabin's  pretty 
clean, — isn't  it?"  he  asked,  somewhat  anxiously. 

"Yes — awful  clean,"  she  said.  Then,  after  a  mo 
ment,  she  continued:  "I  hadn't  oughter  have  stayed 
in  the  cabin.  It's  your'n.  Me  and  the  baby'll  be  all 
right  in  the  brush  shed  with  Spotty." 

"What  nonsense !"  retorted  Moreau.  "Do  you  sup 
pose  I'd  let  you  and  that  baby  stay  in  the  brush  shed, 


HE   RIDES   AWAY  33 

the  place  where  the  horses  have  been  kept  all  summer  ? 
You're  going  to  keep  the  cabin,  and  if  there's  anything 
you  want — anything  that's  short,  or  that  you  might 
need  for  the  baby — why,  Fletcher'll  go  to  Hang- 
town  and  get  it.  Just  say  what  you  want.  Not  hav 
ing  women  around,  we're  probably  short  of  all  sorts 
of  little  fixings." 

"I  don't  want  nothing,"  she  said  with  her  head 
down — "I  ain't  never  been  so  comfortable  sence  I  was 
married." 

"Have  you  been  married  long?"  he  asked,  less  from 
curiosity  than  from  the  desire  to  make  her  talk. 

"Four  years,"  she  replied;  "I  was  married  in  St. 
Louis,  just  before  dad  and  I  was  startin'  to  cross  the 
plains.  Dad  was  taken  sick.  He  was  consumpted, 
and  some  one  tol'  him  to  go  to  California,  so  we  was 
goin'  to  start  along  with  a  heap  of  othe"r  folks.  We 
was  all  waitin'  'round  St.  Louis  for  the  weather  to 
settle  and  that's  how  I  met  Jake." 

"Jake?"  said  Moreau,  interrogatively;  "who  was 
Jake?" 

"My  husband — Jake  Shackleton.  He  was  one  o' 
the  drivers  of  the  train.  He  drove  McGinnes'  teams. 
He  was  there  in  camp  with  us,  and  up  and  asked  me, 
and  dad  was  glad  to  get  any  one  to  take  care  of  me, 
bein'  as  he  was  so  consumpted.  We  was  married  a 
week  afore  the  train  started.  I  didn't  favor  it  much, 
but  dad  thought  it  was  a  good  thing.  My  father  was 
a  Methodist  preacher,  and  knowin'  as  how  he  couldn't 
last  long,  he  was  powerful  glad  to  get  some  one  to 
look  after  me.  I  was  pretty  young  to  be  left — just 
fifteen." 


34  TOMORROWS   TANGLE 

"Fifteen !"  echoed  Moreau — then  piecing  together 
her  scant  bits  of  biography — "Then  you're  only  nine 
teen  now?" 

"That's  my  age,"  she  said  with  her  laconic  dryness. 

He  looked  at  her  in  incredulous  amaze.  Nineteen ! 
A  girl,  almost  a  child!  A  gush  of  pity  and  horror 
welled  up  in  him,  and  for  the  moment  he  could  find 
no  words.  She  went  on,  evidently  desirous  of  telling 
him  of  herself  as  in  duty  bound  to  her  new  master. 

"Dad  died  before  we  got  to  Salt  Lake.  Then  Jake 
and  I  settled  there  and  Willie  was  born,  and  for  two 
years  it  wern't  so  bad.  Jake  liked  me  and  was  good 
to  me.  But  he  got  to  know  the  Mormons  and  kep' 
savin'  all  the  time  it  weren't  no  good  doin'  anything 
not  bein'  a  Mormon.  He  said  they  had  no  use  for 
him,  bein'  a  Gentile.  And  then  he  seen  Bessie, — she 
was  a  waitress  in  the  Sunset  Hotel, — and  got  powerful 
set  on  her.  She  was  a  big,  strong  woman,  and  could 
work.  Not  like  me.  I  couldn't  never  work  except 
in  the  house.  I  was  no  good  for  outdoor  work.  I 
was  always  a  sort  er  drag,  he  said.  So  he  turned  Mor 
mon  and  married  Bessie,  and  she  came  to  live  with 
us."  She  stopped  and  began  rubbing  a  pan  with  a 
piece  of  flour  sack. 

"Don't  tell  any  more  if  you  don't  want  to,"  said  the 
man,  hearing  his  voice  slightly  husky. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mind,"  she  answered  with  her  colorless, 
unemotional  intonation ;  "I  couldn't  ever  come  to  feel 
she  was  his  wife,  too.  I  hadn't  them  notions.  My 
father  was  a  preacher.  I  hated  it  all,  but  I  couldn't 
seem  to  think  of  anything  else  to  do.  I  had  to  stay. 
There  was  no  one  to  go  to.  Dad  was  dead  and  he 


HE   RIDES   AWAY  35 

didn't  have  no  relations.  Then  we  started  to  come 
here,  and  on  the  way  my  little  boy  died.  That  was 
all  I  had,  and  I  didn't  care  then  what  happened.  And 
only  for  the  other  baby  I'd  er  crep'  out  er  the  wagon 
some  night  and  run  away  and  got  lost  on  them  plains. 
But—" 

She  stopped  and  made  a  gesture  of  extending  her 
hands  outward  and  then  letting  them  fall  at  her  sides. 
It  was  tragic  in  its  complete  hopelessness.  Of  grati 
tude  to  Moreau  she  seemed  to  have  little.  She  had 
been  so  beaten  down  by  misfortune  that  nothing  was 
left  in  her  but  acquiescence.  Her  very  service  to  him 
seemed  an  instinctive  thing,  the  result  of  rigorous 
training. 

"Well,"  he  said  after  a  pause,  "you've  had  a  hard 
time.  But  it's  over  now.  Don't  you  think  about  it 
any  more.  You're  going  to  rest  up  here,  and  when 
you're  strong  and  well  again  we'll  think  about  some 
thing  for  you  to  do.  Time  enough  for  that  then. 
But  you  can  always  get  work  and  high  pay  in  Hang- 
town  or  Sacramento.  Or  if  you  don't  fancy  it  at  any 
of  those  places  I'll  see  to  it  that  you  go  down  to  San 
Francisco.  Don't  bother  any  more  anyhow.  You'd 
about  got  to  the  bottom  of  things  and  now  you're 
coming  up." 

She  gathered  up  her  pans  and  said  dully:  "Thank 
you,  sir." 

The  cry  of  the  baby  struck  on  her  ear  and  she 
scrambled  to  her  feet,  and  without  more  words  turned 
and  walked  to  the  cabin. 

At  dinner  she  again  made  her  appearance  on  the 
bank  and  called  the  two  men.  Again  they  were 


36  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

greeted  by  a  meal  that  was  singularly  appetizing,  con 
sidering  the  limited  resources.  Obeying  Moreau's 
order,  she  sat  down  with  them,  but  ate  nothing,  at  in 
tervals  starting  to  her  feet  to  return  to  the  cabin,  then 
restraining  the  impulse  and  sitting  rigid  and  uncom 
fortable  on  the  upturned  box.  To  wait  on  the  men 
seemed  the  only  thing  she  knew  how  to  do,  or  that 
gave  her  ease  in  the  doing. 

The  child  cried  once  or  twice  during  dinner,  and,  in 
the  afternoon,  working  in  the  pit  which  was  in  the 
stream  bed  just  below  the  cabin  window,  Moreau 
heard  it  crying  again.  It  seemed  a  louder  and  more 
imperious  cry  than  it  had  given  previously.  The 
miner,  whose  knowledge  of  infancy  and  its  ills  was  of 
the  most  limited,  wondered  if  it  could  be  sick. 

At  sunset,  the  day's  work  over,  both  men  mounted 
the  bank,  their  takings  of  dust  in  two  tin  cups,  from 
which  it  was  transferred  to  the  buckskin  sacks  in  the 
box  under  the  bunk.  Moreau  entered  the  cabin  to 
get  the  sacks  and  found  Lucy  there  curled  on  the  end 
of  the  bunk  where  the  baby  slept.  As  his  great  bulk 
darkened  the  door  she  started  up,  with  her  invariable 
frightened  look  of  apology. 

"Don't  move — don't  move,"  he  said,  kneeling  by 
her ;  "I  want  to  get  the  box  under  the  bunk." 

She  started  up,  and  being  nearer  the  box  than  he, 
thrust  her  hand  under  and  tried  to  pull  it  out.  It  was 
heavy  with  the  sacks  of  dust  and  required  a  wrench. 
She  rose  from  the  effort,  gave  a  gasp,  and,  reeling, 
fell  against  him.  He  caught  her  in  his  arms,  and  as 
her  head  fell  back  against  his  shoulder  saw  that  she 
was  death-white  and  unconscious. 


HE   RIDES    AWAY  37 

With  terrified  care  he  laid  her  on  Fletcher's  bunk, 
and,  seizing  a  pan  of  water,  sprinkled  her  face  and 
hands,  then  tore  one  of  the  tin  cups  off  its  nail,  and, 
pouring  whisky  into  it,  tried  to  force  it  between  her 
lips.  A  little  entered  her  mouth,  though  most  of  it  ran 
down  her  chin.  As  he  stood  staring  at  her,  Fletcher 
appeared  in  the  doorway. 

"Hullo !"  he  said ;  "what's  the  matter  with  her  ?  By 
gum,  but  she  looks  bad!"  And  then,  with  a  quick 
and  practised  hand,  he  pulled  her  up  to  a  sitting  pos 
ture,  and,  prying  her  mouth  open  with  a  fork,  poured 
some  of  the  whisky  down.  It  revived  her  quickly. 
She  sat  up,  felt  for  her  sunbonnet,  and  then  said : 

"I  hadn't  oughter  have  done  that,  but  it  came  so 
quick." 

She  tried  to  get  up,  but  Moreau  pushed  her  back. 

"Oh,  I  ain't  sick,"  she  said,  trying  to  speak  bravely ; 
"I've  been  took  like  that  before.  It's  just  tiredness. 
I'm  all  right  now." 

She  again  tried  to  rise,  stood  on  her  feet  for  a  mo 
ment,  then  reeled  back  on  the  bunk,  with  white  lips. 

"It's  such  a  weakness,"  she  whispered;  "such  a 
weakness !" 

At  this  moment  the  baby  woke  up,  and,  lifting  up  its 
voice,  began  a  loud,  violent  wail.  The  woman  looked 
in  terror  from  one  man  to  the  other. 

"Oh,  my  poor  baby!"  she  cried;  "what'll  I  do?  Is 
that  one  goin'  to  go,  too  ?" 

"The  baby's  all  right,"  said  Moreau.  "Don't  begin 
to  worry  about  that.  All  babies  cry,  don't  they?" 

"Oh,  my  poor  baby!"  she  wailed,  unheeding,  and 


38  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

suddenly  beginning  to  wring  her  hands.  "It'll  die  like 
Willie.  It'll  die,  too." 

"Why  should  it  die?  What's  the  matter  with  it? 
It  was  all  right  this  morning,  wasn't  it  ?"  he  answered, 
feeling  that  there  were  mysteries  here  he  did  not 
grasp. 

"It'll  die  because  it  don't  get  nothing  to  eat,"  she 
cried  desperately.  "I've  nothing  for  it.  I'm  too  sick ! 
I'm  too  sick!  And  it'll  starve.  Oh,  my  poor  baby!" 

She  burst  into  the  wild,  weak  tears  of  exhaustion, 
her  sobs  mingling  with  the  now  strident  yells  of  the 
hungry  baby. 

The  two  men  looked  at  each  other,  sheepishly,  be 
ginning  to  understand  the  situation.  The  enfeebled 
condition  of  the  mother  made  it  impossible  for  her  to 
nourish  the  child.  It  was  a  predicament  for  which 
even  the  resourceful  mind  of  Fletcher  had  no  remedy. 
He  pushed  back  his  cap,  and,  scratching  slowly  at  the 
front  of  his  head,  looked  at  his  mate  with  solemn  per 
plexity,  while  the  cabin  echoed  to  sounds  of  misery 
unlike  any  that  had  ever  before  resounded  within  its 
peaceful  walls. 

"Can — can — we  get  anything?"  said  Moreau  at 
length — "any — any — sort  of  food,  meat,  eggs — er — er 
any  sort  of  stuff  for  it  to  eat?" 

"Eat?"  exclaimed  Fletcher  scornfully;  "how  can  it 
eat  ?  It  hasn't  a  tooth." 

"How  would  it  do  if  Fletcher  went  into  Hangtown 
and  brought  the  doctor?"  suggested  Moreau,  sooth 
ingly.  "It'll  take  twenty-four  hours,  but  he's  a  good 
doctor." 

The  woman  shook  her  head. 


HE   RIDES   AWAY  39 

"A  goat,"  she  sobbed,  the  menace  to  her  offspring 
having  given  her  a  fictitious  courage.  "If  you  could 
get  a  goat." 

"A  goat !" 

The  two  men  looked  at  each  other,  horror-stricken 
at  the  magnitude  of  the  suggestion. 

"She  might  as  well  ask  us  to  get  an  elephant,"  mut 
tered  Fletcher  morosely.  "There's  not  a  goat  nearer 
than  San  Francisco." 

"And  it  would  take  us  two  weeks  anyway  to  get 
one  up  from  there  and  across  the  mountains  from  Sac 
ramento,"  said  Moreau. 

"By  the  time  you  got  it  here  it'd  be  the  most  ex 
pensive  goat  you  ever  bucked  up  against,"  said  his 
partner  disdainfully. 

"A  cow!"  exclaimed  Moreau.  "Say,  Lucy,  would 
a  cow  do?" 

"A  cow!"  came  the  muffled  answer;  "oh,  it  don't 
need  a  whole  cow." 

"But  a  cow  would  do?  If  I  could  get  a  cow  the 
baby  could  be  fed  on  the  milk,  couldn't  it  ?" 

"Oh,  yes ;  it  'ud  do  first  rate." 

"Very  well,  I'll  get  a  cow.  Don't  you  bother  any 
more ;  I'll  have  a  cow  here  by  to-morrow  noon.  The 
baby'll  have  to  hold  out  till  then,  for,  not  having  a 
decent  horse,  I  can't  get  it  here  any  sooner." 

"And  where  do  you  calk'late  to  get  a  cow?"  de 
manded  Fletcher;  "cows  ain't  much  more  common 
than  goats  round  these  parts." 

"On  the  Porter  ranch.  It's  twelve  miles  off.  I  can 
go  in  to-night,  rest  there  a  bit,  and  by  noon  be  here 
with  the  cow." 


40  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"And  is  that  baby  goin'  to  yell  like  this  from  now 
till  to-morrow  noon?  You  might's  well  have  a 
mountain  lion  tied  up  in  the  bunk." 

The  difficulty  was  indeed  only  half  solved.  The  in 
fant's  lusty  cries  were  unabated.  The  miserable 
mother,  with  tear-drenched  face  and  quivering  chin, 
sat  up  in  the  bunk  and  tried  to  rise  and  go  to  it,  but 
was  restrained  by  Moreau's  hand  on  her  shoulder. 

"You  stay  here  and  I'll  get  it,"  he  said,  then  crossed 
to  the  other  bunk,  and  gingerly  lifted  with  his  huge, 
hairy  hands  the  shrieking  bundle,  from  which  pro 
truded  two  tiny,  red  fists,  jerking  and  clawing  about, 
and  carried  it  to  its  mother.  Her  practised  hand 
hushed  it  for  a  moment,  but  its  pangs  were  beyond  tem 
porary  alleviation,  and  its  cries  soon  broke  forth. 

"If  I  could  git  up  and  mix  it  some  flour  and  water," 
she  said,  feebly  attempting  to  rise. 

"What's  the  matter  with  us  doing  that?"  queried 
Moreau.  "How  do  you  do  it?  Just  give  us  the  pro 
portions  and  we'll  dish  it  up  as  if  we  were  born  to  it." 

Under  her  direction  he  put  flour  in  one  of  the  dip 
pers,  and  handed  Fletcher  a  tin  cup  with  the  order  to 
fill  it  with  water  at  the  spring.  Both  men  were  deeply 
interested,  and  Fletcher  rushed  back  from  the  spring 
with  a  dripping  cup,  as  if  fearful  that  the  infant  would 
die  unless  the  work  of  feeding  was  promptly  begun. 

"Now  go  on,"  said  Moreau,  armed  with  the  dipper 
and  a  tin  teaspoon ;  "what's  next  ?" 

"Sugar,"  she  said ;  "if  you  put  a  touch  of  sugar  in 
it  tastes  better  to  them." 

"Here,  sugar.  Hand  it  over  quick.  Now,  there 
we  are.  How  do  you  mix  'em,  Lucy?" 


HE   RIDES   AWAY  41 

She  gave  the  directions,  which  the  men  carefully 
followed,  compounding  a  white,  milky-looking  liquid. 
The  crucial  moment  came  when  they  had  to  feed  this 
to  the  crimson  and  convulsively  screaming  baby. 

To  forward  matters  better  they  moved  two  boxes  to 
the  doorway,  where  the  glow  of  sunset  streamed  in, 
and  seated  themselves,  Fletcher  with  the  dipper  and 
spoon,  Moreau  with  the  baby.  Both  heads  were  low 
ered,  both  faces  eagerly  earnest  when  the  first  spoon 
ful  was  administered.  It  was  a  tense  moment  till  the 
tip  of  the  spoon  was  inserted  between  the  infant's  lips. 
Her  puckered  face  took  on  a  look  of  rather  annoyed 
surprise ;  she  caught  at  it,  and  then,  with  an  audible 
smack,  slowly  drew  in  the  counterfeit.  The  men 
looked  at  each  other  with  heated  triumph. 

"Takes  it  like  a  little  man,  doesn't  she  ?"  said  Moreau 
proudly. 

"She  wasn't  hungry,"  said  Fletcher.  "Oh-h,  no! 
Listen  to  her  smack." 

"Here,  hold  up  the  dipper.  Don't  keep  her  waiting 
when  she's  so  blamed  hungry." 

"You're  spilling  half  of  it.  You're  getting  it  on 
her  clothes." 

"Well,  she  don't  want  to  eat  any  faster.  That's 
the  way  she  likes  to  eat — just  slowly  suck  it  out  of  the 
spoon.  Take  your  time,  old  girl,  even  if  you  don't 
swallow  it  all." 

"My !  don't  she  take  it  down  nice !  Look  alive  there, 
it's  running  outer  the  corner  of  her  mouth." 

"Give  us  that  bit  of  flour  sack  behind  you.  We 
ought  to  have  put  something  round  her  neck." 

The  baby,  its  round  eyes  intent,  one  small  red  fist 


42  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

still  fanning  the  air,  sucked  noisily  at  the  tip  of  the 
spoon.  The  mother,  sitting  up  on  the  bunk  in  the 
background,  watched  it  with  craned  neck  and  jealous 
eye. 

Finally,  when  the  meal  was  over,  it  was  triumphantly 
handed  back  to  her,  sticky  from  end  to  end,  but  sleepy 
and  satisfied. 

A  few  hours  later,  in  the  star-sown  darkness  of  the 
early  night,  Moreau  started  on  his  twelve-mile  walk 
to  the  Porter  ranch.  The  next  morning,  some  time 
before  midday,  he  reappeared,  red  and  perspiring,  but 
proudly  leading  by  a  rope  a  lean  and  dejected-looking 
cow. 

The  problem  of  the  baby's  nutriment  was  now  satis 
factorily  solved.  The  cow  proved  eminently  fitted  for 
the  purpose  of  its  purchase,  and  though  the  two  miners 
had  several  unsuccessful  bouts  in  learning  to  milk  it, 
the  handy  Fletcher  soon  overcame  this  difficulty,  and 
the  stock  of  the  cabin  was  augmented  by  fresh  milk. 

The  baby  throve  upon  this  nourishment.  Its  cries 
no  longer  disturbed  the  serenity  of  the  canon.  It  slept 
and  ate  most  of  the  time,  but  kindly  consented  to  keep 
awake  in  the  late  afternoon  and  be  gentle  and  patient 
when  the  men  charily  passed  it  from  hand  to  hand 
during  the  rest  before  supper.  Fletcher  regarded  it 
tolerantly  as  an  object  of  amusement.  But  Moreau, 
especially  since  the  feeding  episode,  had  developed  a 
deep,  delighted  affection  for  it.  Its  helplessness  ap 
pealed  to  all  that  was  tender  in  him,  and  the  first  faint 
indications  of  a  tiny  formed  character  were  miracu 
lous  to  his  fascinated  and  wondering  observation.  He 
was  secretly  ashamed  of  letting  the  sneeringly  indif- 


HE   RIDES    AWAY  43 

ferent  Fletcher  guess  his  sudden  attachment,  and  made 
foolish  excuses  to  account  for  the  trips  to  the  cabin 
which  frequently  interrupted  his  morning's  work  in 
the  stream  bed. 

Lucy's  recovery  was  slow.  The  collapse  from  which 
she  suffered  was  as  much  mental  as  physical.  The 
anguish  of  the  last  two  years  had  preyed  on  the 
bruised  spirit  as  the  hardships  of  the  journey  had 
broken  the  feeble  body.  No  particular  form  of  ailment 
developed  in  her,  but  she  lay  for  days  silent  and  al 
most  motionless  on  the  bunk,  too  feeble  to  move  or  to 
speak  beyond  short  sentences.  The  men  watched  and 
tended  her,  Moreau  with  clumsy  solicitude,  Fletcher 
dutifully,  but  more  through  fear  of  his  powerful  mate 
than  especial  interest  in  Lucy  as  a  woman  or  a  human 
being. 

In  his  heart  he  still  violently  resented  Moreau's 
action  in  acquiring  her  and  parting  with  the  valuable 
horses.  Had  she  possessed  any  of  the  attractions  of 
the  human  female,  he  could  have  understood  and 
probably  condoned.  But  as  she  now  was,  plain,  help 
less,  sick,  unable  even  to  cook  for  them,  demanding 
care  which  took  from  their  work  and  lessened  their 
profits,  his  resentment  grew  instead  of  diminishing. 
Moreau  saw  nothing  of  this,  for  Fletcher  had  long  ago 
read  the  simple  secrets  of  that  generous  but  imprac 
tical  nature,  and  knew  too  much  to  bring  down  on 
himself  wrath  which,  once  aroused,  he  felt  would  be 
implacable. 

At  the  end  of  two  weeks  Lucy  began  to  show  signs 
of  improvement.  The  fragrant  air  that  blew  through 
the  cabin,  the  soothing  silence  of  the  foothills,  broken 


44  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

only  by  the  drowsy  prattle  of  the  river  or  the  sad  mur 
muring  of  the  great  pine,  began  its  work  of  healing. 
The  autumn  was  late  that  year.  The  days  were  still 
warm  and  dreamily  brilliant,  especially  in  the  little 
canon,  where  the  sun  drew  the  aromatic  odors  from 
the  pines  till  at  midday  they  exhaled  a  heavy,  pungent 
fragrance  like  incense  rising  to  the  worship  of  some 
sylvan  god. 

Sometimes  now,  on  warm  afternoons,  Lucy  crept 
out  and  sat  at  the  root  of  the  pine  where  she  had  found 
her  first  place  of  refuge.  There  her  dulled  eyes  began 
to  note  the  beauties  that  surrounded  her,  the  pines 
mounting  in  dark  rows  on  the  slopes,  the  blue  dis 
tances  where  the  canon  folded  on  itself,  the  glimpses 
of  chaste,  white  summits  far  above  against  the  blue. 
Her  lungs  breathed  deep  of  the  revivifying  air,  clean 
and  untainted  as  the  water  in  the  little  spring  at  her 
feet.  The  peace  of  it  all  entered  her  soul.  Some 
thing  in  her  forbade  her  to  look  back  on  the  terrible 
past.  A  new  life  was  here,  and  her  youth  rose  up  and 
whispered  that  it  was  not  yet  dead. 

During  the  period  of  her  illness  Moreau  had  begun 
to  see  both  himself  and  the  cabin  through  feminine 
eyes.  Discrepancies  revealed  themselves.  He  wanted 
many  things  heretofore  regarded  as  luxuries.  From 
the  tin  cups  of  the  table  service  to  the  towels  made  of 
ripped  flour  sacks,  his  domestic  arrangements  seemed 
mean  and  inadequate.  They  were  all  right  for  two 
prospectors,  but  not  fitting  for  a  woman  and  child. 
Lucy's  illness  also  revealed  wants  in  her  equipment 
that  struck  him  as  piteous.  Her  only  boots  were  the 
ones  he  had  seen  her  in  on  the  morning  after  her  ar- 


HE   RIDES   AWAY  45 

rival.  She  had  no  shawl  or  covering-  for  cold  weather. 
The  baby's  clothes  were  a  few  torn  pieces  of  calico 
and  flannel.  Moreau  had  washed  these  many  times 
himself,  doing  them  up  in  an  old  flour  sack,  which  was 
attached  to  an  aspen  on  the  stream's  bank,  and  then 
placed  in  one  of  the  deepest  parts  of  the  current. 
Here  it  remained  for  two  days,  the  percolating  water 
cleansing  its  contents  as  no  washboard  could. 

One  evening,  smoking  under  the  pine,  he  acquainted 
Fletcher  with  a  design  he  had  been  some  days  formu 
lating.  This  was  that  Fletcher  should  ride  into  Hang- 
town  the  next  day  and  not  only  replenish  the  com 
missariat,  but  buy  all  things  needful  for  Lucy  and  the 
baby.  Spotty  was  now  also  recovered,  and,  though 
hardly  a  mettlesome  steed,  was  at  least  a  useful  pack 
horse.  But  the  numerous  list  of  articles  suggested 
by  Moreau  would  have  weighted  Spotty  to  the  ground. 
So  Fletcher  was  commissioned  to  buy  a  pack  burro, 
and  upon  it  to  bring  all  needful  food  stuffs  for  the 
cabin  and  the  habiliments  for  Lucy  and  the  baby. 

"She's  got  no  shoes.  You  want  to  buy  her  some 
shoes,  one  useful  pair  and  one  fancy  pair  with  heels." 

"What  size  do  I  git  ?  I  ain't  never  bought  shoes  for 
a  woman  before." 

This  was  a  poser,  and  both  men  cogitated  till 
Moreau  suggested  leaving  it  to  the  shoe  dealer,  who 
should  be  told  that  Lucy  was  a  woman  of  average  size. 

"But  her  feet  ain't,"  said  Fletcher  spitefully,  never 
having  been  able  to  forgive  Lucy  her  lack  of  beauty. 

"Never  mind ;  you'll  have  to  make  a  bluff  at  it.  Get 
the  best  you  can.  Then  I  want  a  shawl  for  her.  It'll 
be  cold  soon,  and  she's  got  nothing  to  keep  her  warm." 


46  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"What  kind  of  a  shawl?  I  don't  know  no  more 
about  shawls  than  I  do  about  shoes." 

"A  pink  crochet  shawl,"  said  Moreau  slowly,  and 
with  evident  sheepish  reluctance  at  having  to  make 
this  exhibition  of  unexpected  knowledge. 

"And  what's  that?     I  dunno  what  crochet  is." 

"I  don't,  either" — and  then,  with  desperate  courage 
— "well,  anyway,  that's  what  she  said  she'd  like.  I 
asked  her  yesterday  and  she  said  that.  You  go  into  the 
store  and  ask  for  it.  That'll  be  enough." 

Fletcher  grunted. 

"And  then  I  want  some  toys  for  the  kid.  Any 
thing  you  can  get  that  seems  the  right  kind.  She's  a 
girl,  so  you  don't  want  a  drum,  or  soldiers,  or  guns, 
or  things  of  that  kind.  Get  a  doll  if  you  can,  and  a 
musical  box,  or  anything  tasty  and  that's  likely  to 
catch  a  baby's  eye." 

"Why,  she  can't  hardly  see  yet.  She's  like  a  blind 
kitten.  Lucy  told  me  herself  yesterday  she  were  only 
six  weeks  old." 

"Never  you  mind.  She's  a  smart  kid ;  knows  more 
now  than  most  babies  at  six  months.  You  might  get  a 
rattle — a  nice  one  with  bells ;  she  might  fancy  that." 

"Silver  or  gold?"  sneered  Fletcher,  whom  this  con 
versation  was  making  meditative. 

"The  best  you  can  get.  Don't  stint  yourself  for 
money ;  everything  of  the  best.  Then  clothes  for  her ; 
she  is  going  to  be  as  well  dressed  as  any  baby  in  Cali 
fornia.  I  take  it  you'd  better  go  to  Mrs.  Wingate,  at 
the  Eldorado  Hotel,  and  get  her  to  make  you  out  a 
list ;  then  go  to  the  store  and  buy  the  list  right  down." 


HE    RIDES    AWAY  47 

"Seems  to  me  you'll  want  a  pack  train,  not  a  burro, 
to  carry  it  all." 

"Well,  if  you  can't  get  everything  on  Spotty  and  one 
burro,  buy  two.  I'll  give  you  a  sack  of  dust  and  you 
can  spend  it  all." 

Fletcher  was  silent  after  this,  and  as  he  lay  rolled 
in  his  blanket  that  night  he  looked  at  the  stars  for 
many  hours,  thinking. 

Early  in  the  morning  he  departed  on  the  now  brisk 
and  rejuvenated  Spotty.  Besides  his  instructions  he 
carried  one  of  Moreau's  buckskin  sacks,  roughly  es 
timated  to  contain  twelve  hundred  dollars'  worth  of 
dust,  and,  he  told  Moreau,  one  of  his  own.  He  was 
due  to  return  the  next  morning.  With  a  short  word  of 
farewell,  he  touched  Spotty  with  the  single  Mexican 
spur  he  wore,  and  darted  away  down  the  rough  trail. 
Moreau  watched  him  out  of  sight. 

The  day  passed  as  quietly  as  its  predecessors.  The 
main  events  that  marked  their  course  had  been  the 
men's  clean-up,  Lucy's  gain  in  strength  and  the  evi 
dences  of  increasing  intelligence  in  the  child. 

To-day  Lucy  had  walked  to  a  point  a  little  distance 
up  the  canon,  rested  there,  and  in  the  afternoon  came 
creeping  back  with  the  flush  of  returning  health  on  her 
face.  It  was  still  there  when  Moreau  ascended  from 
the  stream  bed  with  his  cup.  He  had  had  a  good  day's 
work  and  was  joyful,  showing  the  fine  yellow  grains  in 
the  bottom  of  the  rusty  tin.  Then  he  noticed  her  im 
proved  appearance  and  cried : 

"Why,  you  look  blooming.  A  fellow'd  think  you'd 
panned  a  good  day's  work,  too." 


48  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

To  himself  he  said  with  a  sudden  inward  wonder : 

"She  looks  almost  pretty.  And  she  is  only  nineteen, 
I  believe." 

The  next  morning  he  awaited  the  coming  of  Fletcher 
with  impatience.  He  had  wanted  to  surprise  Lucy, 
having  only  told  her  Fletcher  had  gone  to  buy  a  burro 
and  some  supplies.  But  the  morning  passed  away  and 
he  had  not  returned.  Then  the  afternoon  slipped  by, 
and  Lucy  and  Moreau  took  their  supper  without  him, 
the  latter  rather  taciturn.  The  delay  wore  on  his 
patience.  His  knowledge  of'  Fletcher  was  limited. 
He  had  seen  him  drunk  once  in  Sacramento,  and  he 
wondered  if  he  had  gone  on  a  spree  and  was  now  lying 
senseless  somewhere,  the  contents  of  the  sacks  squan 
dered. 

When  the  next  morning  had  passed  and  Fletcher 
had  still  not  come,  his  suspicions  strengthened  and  he 
began  to  think  uneasily  of  his  dust.  One  sack  full  was 
a  good  deal  to  lose,  now  that  he  had  a  woman  and 
child  on  his  hands.  Lucy,  he  could  see,  was  also  un 
easy.  Twice  he  surprised  her  standing  by  the  trail, 
evidently  listening.  When  evening  drew  in  and  there 
were  still  no  signs  of  him,  both  were  frankly  anxious 
and  oppressed.  Suddenly,  as  they  sat  by  the  box  that 
answered  as  dinner  table,  she  said : 

"Did  he  have  much  dust  ?" 

"Yes — one  sack  of  mine  and  one  of  his  own. 
They're  equal  to  about  twelve  hundred  dollars  each." 

She  gave  a  startled  look  at  him  and  sat  with  her 
mouth  a  little  open,  fear  and  amaze  on  her  face. 

"Where's  the  rest  ?"  she  asked. 

Moreau  indicated  the  box  under  the  bunk.     At  the 


HE   RIDES   AWAY  49 

same  moment  her  suspicion  seized  him  and  he  pulled 
it  out  and  threw  up  the  lid.  It  was  empty  of  all  save 
a  few  clothes.  Every  sack  was  gone. 

Moreau  shut  down  the  lid  quietly,  a  little  pale.  He 
was  not  a  man  of  quick  mind,  and  he  hardly  could 
realize  what  had  happened.  It  was  Lucy's  voice  that 
explained  it  as  she  said: 

"He  did  it  while  I  was  out  in  the  morning.  I  went 
up  the  stream  to  that  pool  to  wash  some  things  at  sun 
up.  He  took  it  then." 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE   ENCHANTED   WINTER 

"I  choose  to  be  yours  for  my  proper  part, 
Yours,  leave  me  or  take,  or  mar  or  make ; 
If  I  acquiesce,  why  should  you  be  teased 
With  the  conscience  prick  and  the  memory  smart?" 

— BROWNING. 

Fletcher  had  gone  silently  and  without  leaving  a 
trace,  and  with  him  the  money.  It  was  a  startling 
situation  for  Moreau.  From  comparative  affluence  he 
suddenly  found  himself  without  a  cent  or  an  ounce  of 
dust.  This,  had  he  had  only  himself  to  look  after, 
would  not  have  affected  his  free  and  jovial  spirit,  but 
now  the  woman  and  the  child  he  had  so  carelessly 
come  into  possession  of  loomed  before  him  in  their  true 
light  of  a  heavy  responsibility.  Lucy,  as  far  as  sup 
porting  herself  went,  was  still  a  long  way  off  from  the 
state  of  health  where  that  would  be  possible.  And  at 
the  thought  of  sending  her  forth,  even  though  she  were 
cured  of  her  infirmities,  Moreau  experienced  a  sensa 
tion  of  depression.  He  felt  that  the  cabin  would  be 
unbearably  lonely  when  she  and  the  baby  were  gone. 

That  night  under  the  pine  he  turned  over  the  situa 
tion  in  his  mind.  The  conclusion  he  arrived  at  was 
that  there  was  nothing  better  to  be  done  than  stay  by 

50 


THE   ENCHANTED    WINTER  51 

the  stream  bed  and  work  it  for  all  it  was  worth.  Lucy 
would  continue  to  improve  in  the  fine  air  and  the  child 
was  thriving.  If  the  snows  would  hold  off  till  late,  as 
they  had  done  in  the  open  winter  of  '50,  he  could  amass 
a  fair  share  of  dust  before  it  would  be  necessary  to 
move  Lucy  and  the  baby  to  the  superior  accommoda 
tions  of  Hangtown  or  Sacramento.  It  was  now  Octo 
ber.  In  November  one  might  expect  the  first  snows. 

He  must  do  a  good  deal  in  the  next  six  weeks.  This 
he  started  to  do.  The  next  day  he  spent  in  raising  a 
brush  shed  against  the  back  of  the  cabin  where  the 
chimney  would  offer  warmth  on  cold  nights.  Into 
this  he  moved  such  few  belongings  as  he  had  retained 
after  Lucy  and  the  baby  had  taken  possession  of  the 
cabin.  Then  the  working  of  the  stream  bed  went  on 
with  renewed  vigor.  The  water  was  low,  hardly  more 
than  a  thread,  rendering  the  washing  of  the  dirt  harder 
labor  than  during  the  earlier  summer  when  the  water 
courses  were  still  full.  But  he  toiled  mightily,  re 
joicing  in  the  splendor  of  his  man's  work,  not  with 
the  same  knightly  freedom  that  he  felt  when  he  had 
been  that  king  of  men,  the  miner  with  his  pick  on  his 
shoulder  and  all  the  world  before  him,  but  with  the 
soberer  joy  of  the  man  into  whose  life  others  have 
entered  to  lay  hold  upon  it  with  light,  clinging  hands. 

Against  the  complete  and  perfect  lonelinesss  of  his 
life  the  woman  and  child,  who  had  started  up  from 
nowhere,  stood  out  as  figures  of  vital  significance. 
They  had  grown  closer  to  him  in  that  one  month's 
isolation  than  they  would  have  done  in  a  year  of  city 
life.  The  child  became  the  object  of  his  secret  but 
deep  devotion.  He  had  been  ashamed  to  let  Fletcher 


52  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

see  it.  Now  that  Fletcher  was  gone,  Moreau  often  stole 
up  from  his  work  in  the  creek  to  look  at  it  as  it  slept  in 
a  box  by  the  open  door.  It  was  as  fresh  as  a  rosebud, 
its  skin  clean  and  satiny,  its  tiny  hands,  crumpled,  white 
and  pink,  like  the  petals  of  flowers.  The  big  man 
leaned  on  his  shovel  to  watch  it  adoringly.  The 
miracle  of  its  growth  in  beauty  never  lost  its  wonder 
for  him. 

Lucy,  too,  grew  and  bloomed  in  these  quiet  autumn 
days.  Never  talkative,  she  became  less  laconic  after 
the  departure  of  Fletcher.  She  seemed  relieved  by 
his  absence.  Moreau  began  to  understand,  as  he  saw 
her  daily  increase  in  freshness  and  youthful  charm, 
that  she  was  as  young  in  nature  as  she  was  in  years. 
Points  of  character  that  were  touchingly  childish  ap 
peared  in  her.  Her  casting  of  all  responsibility  on 
him  was  as  absolute  as  if  she  had  been  ten  years  of 
age.  She  obeyed  him  with  trustful  obedience  and 
waited  on  him  silently,  her  eyes  always  on  him  to  try 
to  read  his  unexpressed  wish.  Sometimes  he  caught 
these  watching  eyes  and  read  in  them  something  that 
vaguely  disturbed  him. 

One  day,  coming  up  from  the  creek  for  one  of  his 
surreptitious  views  of  the  baby,  he  found  its  cradle 
empty,  and  was  about  to  return  to  his  work,  when 
he  heard  a  laugh  rising  from  a  small  knoll  among  the 
aspens.  It  was  a  laugh  of  the  most  infectious,  fresh 
sweetness,  and  made  Moreau's  own  lips  part.  He 
stole  in  its  direction,  and  as  he  advanced  it  sounded 
again,  rippling  deliciously  on  the  crystal  air.  He 
brushed  through  the  aspens  and  came  on  Lucy  and  her 
baby.  She  was  holding  it  in  her  lap,  one  hand  on  the 


THE   ENCHANTED   WINTER  53 

back  of  its  head.  Something  had  touched  its  unknown 
sense  of  the  ludicrous,  and  its  lips  were  parting  in  a 
slow  but  intensely  amused  smile  over  its  toothless 
gums.  Each  smile  was  answered  by  its  mother  with  a 
run  of  the  laughter  Moreau  had  heard. 

He  looked  at  them  for  a  moment,  and  then,  advanc 
ing,  his  foot  cracked  a  dry  branch,  and  Lucy  turned. 
Her  face  was  flushed,  her  eyes  still  full  of  their  past 
merriment,  her  smiling  lips  looked  a  coral  red  against 
the  whiteness  of  her  small,  even  teeth.  Her  sun- 
bonnet  was  off  and  her  rich  hair  glowed  like  copper  in 
the  sun.  He  had  never  seen  her  look  like  this,  and 
stopped,  regarding  her  with  a  curious,  sudden  gravity. 
The  thought  was  in  his  heart : 

"She's  only  a  girl,  and — and — almost  beautiful." 

Lucy  looked  confused. 

"Oh,  I  was  just  laughing  at  the  baby,"  she  said 
apologetically ;  "she  looked  so  sorter  cute  smiling  that 
way." 

"I  never  heard  you  laugh  like  that  before.  Why 
don't  you  do  it  oftener  ?" 

She  seemed  embarrassed  and  murmured : 

"I  didn't  think  you'd  like  to  hear  me." 

"I  think  you're  sometimes  afraid  of  me,"  he  said; 
"is  that  true?" 

She  bent  her  face  over  the  baby  and  said  very  low : 

"I'm  afraid  as  how  you  might  get  mad  at  me.  I 
don't  know  much  and — I'm  different,  and  you've  been 
more  good  to  me  than — " 

She  stopped,  her  face  hidden  over  the  child.  Moreau 
felt  a  sudden  sense  of  embarrassed  discomfort. 


54  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Oh,  don't  talk  that  way,"  he  said,  hastily,  "or  I 
may  get  mad.  That's  the  sort  of  talk  that  annoys  me. 
Laugh  and  be  happy — that's  the  way  I  want  you  to  be. 
Enjoy  yourself ;  that's  the  way  to  please  me." 

He  swung  himself  down  from  the  knoll  into  the 
creek  bed  and  went  back  to  his  rocker.  He  found 
it  hard  to  collect  his  thoughts.  The  music  of  Lucy's 
laugh  haunted  him. 

A  week,  and  then  two,  passed  away.  The  golden 
days  slipped  by,  still  warm,  still  scented  with  the  heal 
ing  pine  balsam.  The  nights  were  white  with  great 
stars,  which  Moreau  could  see  between  the  pine 
boughs,  for  it  was  still  warm  enough  to  sleep  on  the 
knoll.  His  nights'  rests  were  now  often  disturbed.  A 
change  had  come  over  the  situation  in  the  cabin.  The 
peace  and  serenity  of  the  first  days  after  Fletcher's  de 
parture  had  gone,  leaving  a  sense  of  constraint  and 
uneasiness  in  their  stead.  Moreau  now  looked  up  at 
the  stars  not  with  the  calm  content  of  the  days  when 
Lucy  had  first  come,  but  with  the  trouble  of  a  man 
who  begins  to  realize  menace  in  what  he  thought  were 
harmless  things. 

Nearly  a  month  had  passed  since  Fletcher's  de 
parture  when  one  day,  walking  down  the  stream  with 
an  idea  of  trying  diggings  farther  down,  he  came  upon 
Lucy  washing  in  a  pool  of  water  enlarged  by  a  rough 
dam  she  herself  had  constructed.  She  was  kneeling 
on  a  flat  stone  on  the  bank,  her  sunbonnet  off,  her 
sleeves  rolled  up,  laving  in  the  water  the  few  articles 
of  dress  that  made  up  the  baby's  wardrobe.  Her  arms 
above  the  sunburned  wrists  shone  snow-white,  her 
roughened  hair  lay  low  on  her  forehead  in  damp, 


THE   ENCHANTED   WINTER  55 

curly  strands.  The  sight  of  her  engaged  in  this 
menial  toil  irritated  Moreau  and  he  called: 

"What  are  you  doing  there,  Lucy?     Get  up." 

She  started  with  one  of  her  old  nervous  movements 
and  sat  back  on  the  stone.  Then,  seeing  who  it  was, 
smiled  confidently,  and  brushed  the  hair  back  from 
her  forehead  with  one  wet  hand. 

"I  was  washing  the  baby's  things.  That's  the  dam 
I  made." 

Moreau  stood  looking,  not  at  the  dam,  but  at  the 
woman,  flushed,  breathless  and  smiling,  a  blooming 
girl. 

"No  one  would  ever  think  you  were  the  same  woman 
who  came  here  two  months  ago,"  he  said,  more  to 
himself  than  to  her. 

"I  don't  feel  like  the  same,"  she  answered,  begin 
ning  to  wring  her  clothes.  "I  don't  feel  now  as  if 
that  was  me." 

"I  thought  you  were  quite  an  old  woman  then.  Do 
you  know  that?  I'd  no  idea  you  were  young." 

"I  felt  old.  Oh,  God — !"  she  said,  suddenly  drop 
ping  her  hands  and  looking  across  the  pool  with  darkly 
reminiscent  eyes — "how  awful  I  felt!" 

"But  you're  quite  well  now  ?  You're  really  well, 
aren't  you?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  I'm  all  right,"  she  said,  returning  to  her  tone 
of  gaiety.  "I  ain't  never  been  like  this  before.  Not 
sence  I  was  married,  anyway." 

The  allusion  to  her  marriage  made  Moreau  wince. 
Of  late  the  subject  had  become  hateful  to  him.  Stand 
ing,  leaning  on  his  shovel,  he  said : 


56  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"You  know  it'll  be  winter  here  soon,  so  it's  a  good 
thing  we've  got  you  well  and  nicely  rested  up." 

"Yes,  I  guess  'twill  be  winter  soon,"  she  said,  look 
ing  vaguely  round ;  "does  it  snow  ?" 

"Sometimes  tons  of  it,  if  it's  a  hard  winter.  But 
we've  got  to  get  out  before  that.  Or  you  have,  any 
how.  Can't  run  any  risks  with  the  baby.  Got  to  get 
her  out  and  into  some  decent  shelter  before  the  snow 
falls." 

For  a  moment  Lucy  made  no  answer.  She  had 
stopped  wringing  the  clothes  and  was  kneeling  on  the 
stone,  her  eyes  on  the  water,  a  faint  line  drawn  be 
tween  her  brows. 

"Where  to — ?    What  sort  o'  place  ?"  she  said  slowly. 

Moreau  shifted  his  eyes  from  her  face  to  the  earth 
in  which  the  point  of  his  shovel  had  imbedded  itself. 

"I  told  you  as  soon  as  you  got  well  I'd  take  you  to 
Hangtown  or  Sacramento,  or  even  'Frisco  if  they 
didn't  suit.  Now  I  haven't  got  dust  enough  to  do 
that.  Fletcher  put  that  spoke  in  my  wheel.  But  I'll 
take  you  and  the  baby  into  Hangtown." 

"Hangtown?"  she  repeated  faintly. 

"Yes ;  it's  quite  a  ways  off.  I'll  have  to  go  in  my 
self  and  get  a  horse  first,  and  then  I'll  take  you  both 
in  on  that.  I  thought  I'd  go  to  Mrs.  Wingate.  Her 
husband  runs  the  Eldorado  Hotel,  and  she  isn't  strong, 
and  told  me  last  time  I  was  there  she'd  give  a  fancy 
salary  if  she  could  get  a  housekeeper.  How'd  you  like 
to  try  that?  It  would  be  a  first-class  home  for  you 
and  the  baby." 

Lucy  had  bent  her  face  over  the  wet  clothes. 


THE   ENCHANTED   WINTER  57 

"Ain't  it  all  right  here?"  she  said  in  a  scarcely 
audible  voice. 

"No,"  said  Moreau  irritably;  "I  just  told  you  there 
was  danger  of  being  snowed  in  after  the  first  of  No 
vember.  You  don't  want  to  be  snowed  in  here  with 
the  baby,  do  you?" 

"I  don't  care,"  said  Lucy. 

"If  you  don't  feel  strong  enough  to  do  work  like 
that,"  he  continued,  "you  can  stay  on  in  the  hotel.  I 
can  make  the  dust  for  that  easily.  Then  in  the  spring, 
when  the  streams  are  full,  I'll  have  enough  to  send 
you  to  Sacramento  or  San  Francisco,  and  you  can 
look  about  you  and  see  how  you'd  like  it  there." 

"Why  can't  I  stay  here?"  she  said  suddenly,  her 
voice  quavering,  but  full  of  protest. 

Its  note  thrilled  Moreau. 

"I've  just  told  you  why,"  he  said  quietly. 

"Well,  I'm  not  afraid.  I  don't  mind  snow.  You 
can  get  things  to  eat  from  Hangtown.  Oh,  let  me 
stay." 

She  turned  toward  him,  still  kneeling  on  the  stone. 
Her  face  was  quivering  with  the  most  violent  emotions 
he  had  ever  seen  on  it.  The  dead  apathy  was  gone 
forever,  at  least  as  far  as  he  was  concerned. 

"Oh,  let  me  stay,"  she  implored;  "don't  send  me 
away  from  you." 

"Oh,  Lucy,"  he  almost  groaned,  "don't  you  see  that 
won't  do?" 

"Let  me  stay,"  she  reiterated,  and  stretched  out  her 
hands  toward  him.  The  tears  began  to  pour  down 
her  cheeks,  and  suddenly  with  the  outstretched  hands 


58  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

she  seized  him,  and  burst  forth  into  a  stream  of  im 
passioned  words: 

"Let  me  stay.  Let  me  be  with  you.  Don't  send 
me  away.  There  ain't  no  use  in  anything  if  I'm  not 
with  you.  Let  me  work  for  you.  Let  me  be  where 
I  can  see  you — that's  all  I  want.  I  don't  want  no 
money  nor  clothes.  If  you'll  just  let  me  be  near  by! 
And  I  kin  always  work  and  cook,  and  you  know  you 
like  things  clean,  and  I  kin  keep  'em  clean.  Oh,  you 
can't  mean  to  send  me  off.  I  ain't  never  been  happy 
before.  I  ain't  never  had  no  one  treat  me  so  kind 
before.  I  ain't  never  known  what  it  was  like  to  be 
treated  decent.  I  can't  leave  you — I  can't — I  can't — " 

She  sank  down  at  his  feet  in  a  quivering  heap. 

Moreau  raised  her  and  held  her  in  his  arms,  pressed 
against  his  breast,  his  cheek  against  her  hair.  He  had 
no  thought  for  the  moment  but  an  ecstasy  of  pity  and 
joy.  Clinging  close  to  him,  she  reiterated  between 
broken  breaths: 

"I  kin  stay?     Oh !  I  kin  stay ?" 

"Lucy,"  he  said,  "how  can  you  ?  Do  you  know  what 
you're  asking?" 

"But  I  kin  stay?"  she  repeated. 

She  slid  one  arm  round  his  neck,  and  he  felt  her 
wet  cheek  against  his. 

"Let  me  just  stay  and  work,"  she  whispered,  "just 
where  I  can  see  you." 

"Do  you  forget  that  you're  married?"  he  said 
huskily. 

"I'll  not  be  in  your  way.  I'll  not  ask  for  anything 
or  be  any  trouble,"  was  her  whispered  answer,  "so 
long's  you  let  me  be  near  you." 


THE   ENCHANTED   WINTER  59 

They  walked  back  to  the  cabin  silently.  Lucy  knew 
that  she  had  gained  her  point  and  would  stay.  Her 
childish  nature  invaded  and  possessed  by  a  great  pas 
sion  built  on  gratitude  and  reverence,  asked  no  more 
than  to  be  allowed  to  work  for  and  worship  the  man 
who  was  to  her  a  god.  She  did  not  look  into  the 
future,  nor  demand  its  secrets.  The  perfect  joy  of  the 
present  filled  her.  In  the  days  that  followed  she  grew 
in  beauty,  and  in  some  subtile  way  acquired  a  new  girl- 
ishness.  Her  past  seemed  wiped  out.  The  blighting 
effects  of  the  four  previous  years  fell  away  from  her 
and  she  seemed  to  revert  to  the  sweet  and  simple 
youthfulness  that  had  been  hers  when  Jake  Shackle- 
ton  had  married  her  at  St.  Louis.  Silent  and  gentle 
as  ever,  it  was  plain  to  be  seen  that  whatever  Moreau 
asked  for — service,  friendship,  love — she  would  un- 
questioningly  give. 

Early  in  November  a  cold  evening  came  with  a  red 
sunset  and  a  sharpening  of  every  outline.  For  the 
first  time  they  were  driven  into  the  cabin  for  supper. 
A  fire  of  boughs  and  dried  cones  burned  in  the  chim 
ney  and  before  this,  supper  being  over,  they  sat,  Lucy 
in  the  rocker  made  of  a  barrel,  Moreau  on  the  end  of 
an  upturned  box,  staring  at  the  flames. 

Finally  the  man  broke  the  silence  by  telling  her  that 
he  was  going  to  take  his  dust  and  walk  into  Hangtown 
the  next  day,  remaining  there  over  night  and  return 
ing  in  the  morning  with  fresh  supplies  and  a  burro. 

"Lucy,"  he  said,  drawing  his  box  nearer  to  her,  "I 
want  to  talk  to  you,  of  something." 

She  looked  up,  saw  that  the  moment  both  had  been 
dreading  had  come,  and  paled. 


60  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Lucy,  the  winter's  coming.  The  snow  may  be  here 
now  at  any  moment.  Have  you  thought  of  what 
we're  to  do?" 

She  shook  her  head  and  began  to  tremble.  His 
words  called  up  the  specter  of  separation — what  she 
feared  most  in  the  world. 

"You  know  we  can't  live  on  this  way.  Will  you,  if 
I  go  into  Hangtown  and  bring  back  a  mule,  ride  there 
with  me  the  day  after  to-morrow  and  marry  me? 
There  are  two  or  three  preachers  there  who  will  do  it." 

She  looked  at  him  with  surprised  eyes. 

"I'm  married  already  to  Jake,"  she  said.  "How  kin 
I  get  married  again  ?" 

"I  know  it,  and  it's  no  good  trying  to  break  that 
marriage.  But  in  your  eyes  and  mine  that  was  none. 
You  and  your  baby  are  mine  to  take  care  of  and  sup 
port  and  love  for  the  rest  of  our  lives.  Though  you 
can't  be  my  lawful  wife,  I  can  protect  you  from  scan 
dal  and  insujt  by  making  you  what  all  the  world  will 
think  is  my  lawful  wife.  Only  you,  and  I  and  Jake 
and  his  second  wife  will  know  that  there  has  been  a 
previous  marriage  and  not  one  of  that  four  will  ever 
tell." 

She  put  her  rough  hand  out  and  felt  his  great  fist 
close  over  it,  like  a  symbol  of  the  protection  he  was 
offering  her. 

"We  can  be  married  in  Hangtown  by  your  maiden 
name.  If  any  one  asks  I  can  say  I  am  marrying  a 
young  widow  whose  husband  died  on  the  Sierra.  Your 
husband  did  die  there  when  he  sold  you  to  me  for  a 
pair  of  horses." 

She  nodded,  not  quite  understanding  his  meaning. 


THE   ENCHANTED   WINTER  61 

"Kin  Jake  ever  come  and  claim  me  ?"  she  asked  in  a 
frightened  voice. 

"How  could  he?  How  could  he  dare  tell  the  world 
how  he  left  you  and  his  child  sick,  almost  dying,  in 
the  hut  of  an  unknown  miner  in  the  foothills?  This 
is  California,  where  men  don't  forgive  that  sort  of 
thing." 

She  was  silent,  and  then  said:  "Yes,  let's  go  to 
Hangtown  and  be  married." 

"Was  your  first  marriage  perfectly  legal?  Have 
you  got  the  marriage  certificate?" 

She  rose,  dragged  out  the  bundle  she  had  brought 
with  her,  and  from  it  drew  a  long  dirty  envelope  which 
she  handed  to  him. 

He  opened  it  and  found  the  certificate.  It  was  accu 
rate  in  every  detail.  His  eye  ran  over  the  ages  and 
names  of  the  contracting  parties — Lucy  Eraser,  fifteen, 
to  Jacob  Shackleton,  twenty-four,  at  St.  Louis. 

Twisting  the  paper  in  his  hands  he  sat  moodily  ey 
ing  the  fire.  The  second  marriage  was  the  only  way 
he  could  think  of  by  which  he  could  lend  a  semblance 
of  right  to  the  impossible  position  in  which  his  gener 
ous  action  had  placed  him.  Divorce,  in  that  remote  lo 
cality  and  at  that  early  day  of  laws,  half  administered 
and  chaotic,  was  impossible,  and  even  had  it  been  easily 
obtained  he  shrank  from  dragging  into  publicity  the 
piteous  story  of  how  the  woman  he  loved  had  been 
sold  to  him. 

That  a  marriage  with  Jake  Shackleton's  wife  was  a 
legal  offense  he  knew,  but  with  one  of  those  strange 
whimsies  of  character  which  mark  mankind,  he  felt 
that  the  reading  of  the  marriage  service  over  Lucy 


62  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

and  himself  would  in  some  way  sanctify  what  could 
never  be  a  lawful  tie. 

In  a  spasm  of  rage  and  disgust  he  held  out  the 
paper  to  the  flames,  when  Lucy,  with  a  smothered 
cry  sprang  forward  and  seized  it.  It  was  the  first 
violent  action  into  which  he  had  ever  seen  her  betrayed. 
He  looked  in  surprise  into  her  flushed  and  alarmed 
face. 

"Why  not  ?  Why  not  destroy  everything  that  could 
connect  you  with  such  a  past  ?"  he  said,  almost  angrily. 

She  hesitated,  smoothing  out  the  paper  with  trem 
bling  hands.  Then  she  said  f alteringly : 

"I  don't  know — but — but — he  was  her  father,"  indi 
cating  the  sleeping  baby.  "I  was  married  to  him  all 
right." 

He  understood  the  instinct  that  made  her  wish  to 
keep  the  paper  as  a  record  of  her  child's  legitimacy, 
and  made  no  further  comment. 

The  next  morning  at  dawn  he  started  for  his  long 
walk  into  Hangtown,  taking  with  him  all  the  dust  he 
had  accumulated  since  Fletcher's  departure.  He  was 
absent  till  the  afternoon  of  the  following  day,  when 
he  reappeared  leading  a  small  pack-mule,  laden  with 
supplies,  among  which  were  several  articles  of  dress 
for  Lucy  and  the  baby,  so  that  they  might  make  a  fit 
ting  appearance  when  they  rode  into  camp  for  the 
wedding.  Lucy  was  overjoyed  at  her  finery,  and  ar 
rayed  in  it  looked  so  pretty  and  so  girlish  that  Moreau, 
for  the  first  time  since  the  scene  by  the  creek,  took 
her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her.  It  was  the  kiss  of  the 
bridegroom  and  the  master. 

The  next  morning  when  she  woke  the  cabin  was 


THE   ENCHANTED    WINTER  63 

curiously  dark.  Going  to  the  door  to  open  it,  she  found 
it  resisted,  and  went  to  the  window.  The  world  was 
wrapped  in  a  blinding  fall  of  snow.  When  Moreau 
came  in  for  breakfast,  he  reported  a  blizzard  outside. 
The  cold  was  intense,  the  wind  high,  and  the  snow 
so  fine  and  so  torn  by  the  gale  that  it  was  like  a  mist 
of  whiteness  enveloping  the  cabin.  Already  it  was 
piled  high  about  the  walls  and  had  to  be  shoveled  from 
the  door  to  permit  of  its  opening.  Fortunately  they 
had  collected  a  large  amount  of  fire  wood  which  was 
piled  in  the  brush  shed  in  which  the  man  lived.  During 
the  morning  Moreau  took  the  animals  from  their  shel 
ter  and  stabled  them  in  his.  There  was  fodder  for  them 
and  a  bed  of  leaves,  and  the  heat  of  the  chimney 
warmed  the  fragile  hut. 

All  day  the  storm  raged,  and  in  the  evening,  as  he 
and  Lucy  sat  before  the  fire,  they  could  hear  the  tur 
moil  of  the  tempest  outside,  moaning  through  the 
ranks  of  the  sentinel  pines.  They  were  silent,  listening 
to  this  shouting  of  the  unloosed  elements,  and  feeling 
an  indescribably  sweet  sense  of  home  and  shelter  in 
their  rugged  cabin  and  each  other's  society. 

The  storm  was  one  of  those  unexpected  blizzards 
which  sometimes  visit  the  Sierras  in  the  early  winter. 
With  brief  intervals  of  sunshine,  the  snow  fell  off  and 
on  for  nearly  a  month.  Moreau  had  to  exercise  almost 
superhuman  effort  to  keep  the  cabin  from  being  buried, 
and,  as  it  was,  the  drifts  nearly  covered  the  window.  It 
was  impossible  to  travel  any  distance,  as  the  snow  was 
of  a  fine,  feathery  texture  which  did  not  pack  tight,  and 
into  which  the  wanderer  sank  to  the  arm-pits.  Fortu 
nately  the  last  trip  into  Hangtown  had  stocked  the 


64  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

cabin  well  with  provisions.  No  cares  menaced  its  in 
mates,  who,  warm  and  happy  in  the  vast  snow-buried 
solitudes  of  the  mountains,  led  an  enchanted  existence, 
forgetting  and  forgotten  by  the  world. 

When  the  storm  ended  the  miner  attempted  to  get 
into  the  settlements  with  the  mule.  But  the  beast,  ex 
hausted  by  the  insufficient  food,  as  the  best  part  of  the 
fodder  had  to  be  given  to  the  cow,  fell  by  the  way, 
dying  in  one  of  the  drifts.  This  seemed  to  sever  their 
last  link  with  the  world.  Nature  had  drawn  an  un 
broken  circle  of  loneliness  around  them.  Under  its 
spell  they  were  drawn  closer  together  till  their  lives 
merged — the  primitive  man  and  woman  living  for  and 
by  love  in  the  primitive  wilderness. 

So  the  enchanted  winter  passed.  The  man,  at  inter 
vals,  making  his  way  into  the  settlements  for  food  and 
the  few  articles  of  clothing  that  they  needed.  It  was 
a  terrible  winter,  nearly  as  fierce  as  that  of  '46,  but  be 
tween  the  storms  Moreau  fitfully  worked  the  stream, 
obtaining  enough  dust  to  pay  for  their  provisions.  The 
outside  world  seemed  to  fade  from  their  lives,  which 
were  bounded  by  the  walls  of  the  cabin.  Here,  in 
the  long  fire-lit  evenings,  Moreau  read  to  Lucy,  taught 
her  from  his  few  books,  strove  to  develop  the  mind 
that  misfortune  had  almost  crushed.  She  responded 
to  his  teachings  with  the  quickness  of  love.  With 
out  much  mental  ability  she  improved  because  she 
lived  only  for  what  he  desired.  She  smoothed  the 
roughness  of  her  speech  and  studied  to  correct  her 
grammatical  errors.  She  made  him  set  her  little  tasks 
such  as  a  child  studies,  and  in  the  evenings  he  watched 
her  with  surreptitious  amusement,  as  she  conned  over 


THE   ENCHANTED   WINTER  65 

her  spelling1,  or  traced  letters  in  her  copy-book.  She 
was  passionately  desirous  of  being  worthy  of  him,  and 
of  leaving  her  old  chrysalis  behind  her  when  she  issued 
from  the  cabin. 

This  was  not  to  be  until  the  early  spring.  It  was 
nearly  six  months  from  the  time  the  emigrant  wagon 
had  stopped  at  his  door,  that  Moreau,  having  accumu 
lated  enough  dust  to  buy  another  mule  and  another  out 
fit — took  Lucy  and  the  child  into  Hangtown  for  the 
marriage.  This  ceremony,  about  which  in  the  begin 
ning  she  had  been  somewhat  apathetic,  she  now  ear 
nestly  desired.  It  was  accomplished  without  publicity 
or  difficulty,  Lucy  assuming  her  maiden  name  of  Fra- 
ser,  and  passing  as  a  young  widow.  In  the  afternoon 
they  started  back  for  the  cabin,  Moreau  on  foot,  with 
his  wife  and  baby  on  the  mule.  They  had  decided  to 
stay  by  their  claim  during  the  spring  and  early  sum 
mer  when  the  streams  were  high. 

Thus  the  spring  passed  and  the  summer  came.  Dur 
ing  this  season  Lucy,  for  the  first  time,  saw  that  most 
lovely  of  Californian  wild-flowers,  the  mariposa  lily, 
and  called  her  baby  after  it.  As  time  went  on  and  no 
other  child  was  born,  Moreau  came  to  regard  the  little 
Mariposa  as  more  and  more  his  own.  His  affection  for 
her  became  a  paternal  passion.  It  was  decided  between 
himself  and  Lucy  that  she  should  never  know  the  secret 
of  her  parentage,  but  be  called  by  his  name  and  be 
brought  up  as  his  child.  As  the  happiness  of  the  union 
grew  in  depth  and  strength  both  the  man  and  woman 
desired  more  ardently  to  forget  beyond  all  recall  the 
terrible  past  from  which  she  had  entered  his  life.  It 
grew  to  be  a  subject  to  which  Moreau  could  bear  no 


66  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

allusion,  and  their  life  was  purposely  quiet  and  se 
cluded,  for  fear  of  a  chance  encounter  with  some  dis 
turbing  reminder. 

So  the  time  passed.  In  the  course  of  the  next  few 
years  Moreau  moved  from  the  smaller  camps  into  Sac 
ramento.  Though  a  man  of  little  commercial  ability, 
he  was  always  able,  in  those  halcyon  days,  to  make  a 
good  living  for  the  woman  and  child  to  whom  he  had 
given  his  life.  Years  of  prosperity  made  it  possible  to 
give  to  Mariposa  every  educational  advantage  the 
period  and  town  offered.  The  child  showed  musical 
talent,  and  for  the  development  of  this  he  was  keenly 
ambitious. 

Across  their  tranquil  life,  now  and  then,  came  a  lurid 
gleam  from  the  career  of  the  man  who  was  Lucy  Mo- 
reau's  lawful  husband.  Jake  Shackleton  was  soon  a 
marked  figure  in  the  new  state.  But  his  rise  to  sen 
sational  fortune  began  with  the  booming  days  of  the 
Comstock.  Then  his  star  rose  blazing  above  the  ho 
rizon.  He  was  one  of  the  original  exploiters  of  the 
great  lode  and  was  one  of  those  who  owned  that  solid 
cone  of  silver  which  has  gone  down  to  history  as  the 
Reydel  Monte.  Ten  years  from  his  entrance  into  the 
state  he  was  a  rich  man.  In  twenty,  he  was  one  of  that 
group  of  millionaires,  whose  names  were  sounded  from 
end  to  end  of  an  astonished  country. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  from  the  time  when  he  had 
crossed  the  desert  in  an  emigrant  wagon,  with  his  two 
wives,  he  read  in  the  paper  he  had  recently  bought  as 
an  occupation  and  investment,  a  notice  of  the  death  of 
Daniel  Moreau  in  Santa  Barbara.  It  was  brief,  as  be 
fitted  a  pioneer  who  had  sunk  so  completely  out  of  sight 


THE   ENCHANTED   WINTER  67 

and  memory,  leaving  neither  vast  wealth  nor  pic 
turesque  record.  The  paragraph  stated  that  "the 
pioneer's  devoted  wife  and  daughter  attended  his  last 
hours,  which  were  tranquil  and  free  from  pain.  It  is 
understood  that  the  deceased  leaves  but  little  fortune, 
having  during  the  last  two  or  three  years  been  incapac 
itated  for  work  by  enfeebled  health." 


MARIPOSA  LILY 


CHAPTER  I 

HIS   SPLENDID   DAUGHTER 

"Hast  thou  found  me,  O  mine  enemy?" 

— KINGS. 

Four  months  after  the  death  of  Dan  Moreau  his 
adopted  daughter,  Mariposa,  sat  at  the  piano,  in  a 
small  cottage  on  Pine  Street,  in  San  Francisco,  sing 
ing.  Her  performance  was  less  melodious  than  re 
markable,  for  she  was  engaged  in  "trying  her  voice." 
This  was  Mariposa's  greatest  claim  to  distinction,  and, 
she  hoped,  to  fortune.  With  it  she  dreamed  of  con 
quering  fame  and  bringing  riches  to  her  mother  and 
herself. 

She  was  so  far  from  either  of  these  goals  that  she 
permitted  herself  to  speculate  on  them  as  one  does  on 
impossible  glories.  The  merits  of  her  voice  were  as 
unknown  in  San  Francisco  as  she  was.  Its  cultivation 
had  been  a  short  and  exciting  episode,  relinquished  for 
lack  of  means.  Now  it  was  not  only  given  up,  but 
Mariposa  was  teaching  piano  herself,  and  was  fever 
ishly  exalted  when,  the  week  before,  her  three  pupils 
had  been  augmented  by  a  fourth.  Four  pupils,  at  fifty 
cents  a  lesson,  brought  in  four  dollars  a  week — sixteen 
a  month. 

"If  I  make  sixteen  dollars  a  week  after  four  months' 
work,"  Mariposa  had  said  to  her  mother,  on  the  acqui 
sition  of  this  fourth  pupil,  "then  in  one  year  I  ought  to 


72  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

make  thirty-two  dollars  a  month.  Don't  you  think 
that's  a  reasonable  way  of  reckoning?" 

From  which  it  will  be  seen  that  Mariposa  was  not 
only  young  in  years,  but  a  novice  at  the  work  of  wage- 
earning. 

She  was  in  reality  twenty-five  years  of  age,  but 
passed  as,  and  believed  herself  to  be,  twenty-four.  She 
had  developed  into  one  of  those  lordly  women,  stately 
of  carriage,  wide  of  shoulder  and  deep  of  breast,  that 
California  grows  so  triumphantly.  She  had  her 
mother's  thick,  red-brown  hair,  with  its  flat  loose  ripple 
and  the  dog's  brown  eyes  to  match,  a  skin  as  white  as  a 
blanched  almond  with  a  slight  powdering  of  freckles 
over  her  nose,  and  lips  that  were  freshly  red  and  deli 
cately  defined  against  the  warm  pallor  surrounding 
them.  She  was,  in  fact,  a  beautified  likeness  of  the  Lucy 
that  Moreau  saw  come  gropingly  back  to  youth  and  de 
sirableness  in  the  cabin  on  the  flank  of  the  Sierra. 
Only  happiness  and  refinement  and  a  youth  passed  in 
an  atmosphere  of  love,  had  given  her  all  that  richness 
of  girlhood,  that  effervescent  confidence  and  joy  of 
youth  that  poor  Lucy  had  never  known. 

Despite  her  air  of  a  young  princess,  her  proudly- 
held  head,  her  almost  Spanish  dignity,  where  only  her 
brown  eyes  looked  full  of  alertness  and  laughter,  she 
was  in  character  and  knowledge  of  life  foolishly  young 
— in  reality,  a  little  girl  masquerading  in  the  guise  of  a 
triumphantly  maturing  womanhood.  Her  life  had 
been  one  of  quietude  and  seclusion.  Her  parents  had 
been  agreed  in  their  desire  for  this ;  the  father  in  the 
fear  of  a  reencounter  with  some  phantom  from  the 
past.  Lucy's  ostensible  reason  was  her  own  delicate 


HIS    SPLENDID   DAUGHTER  73 

health;  but  her  dread  was  that  Shackleton  might  see 
his  child  and  claim  her.  It  seemed  impossible  to  the 
adoring  mother  that  any  father  could  see  this  splendid 
daughter  and  not  rise  up  and  call  her  his  before  all 
men. 

The  afternoon  was  cold  and  Mariposa  wore  a  jacket 
as  she  sang.  The  cottage  in  Pine  Street  was  all  that  a 
cottage  ought  not  to  be, — on  the  wrong  side  of  the 
street,  "too  far  out,"  cold,  badly  built,  and  with  only 
one  window  to  catch  the  western  sun.  It  had  one  ad 
vantage  which  went  a  long  way  with  the  widow  and 
her  daughter — the  rent  was  twenty  dollars  a  month. 
Mariposa  had  paid  ten  dollars  of  this  with  her  earn 
ings,  and  kept  the  other  six  for  pocket-money.  But  the 
happy  day  was  dawning,  so  she  thought,  when  she 
could  pay  the  whole  twenty.  She  cogitated  on  this  and 
the  affluence  it  would  indicate,  as  her  real  father  might 
have  cogitated  when  he  and  the  inner  ring  of  his  asso 
ciates  began  to  realize  that  the  Reydel  Monte  was  not 
a  pocket,  but  a  solid  mound  of  mineral. 

On  this  gray  afternoon  the  cold  little  parlor,  with  its 
bulge  of  bay  window  looking  out  on  the  dreariness  of 
the  street,  seemed  impregnated  with  an  air  of  dejection. 
In  common  with  many  poor  dwellings  in  that  city  of 
extravagant  reverses,  it  was  full  of  the  costly  relics  of 
better  days.  San  Francisco  has  more  of  such  parlors 
than  any  city  in  the  country.  The  pieces  of  buhl  and 
marquetry  hiding  their  shame  in  twenty-dollar  cottages 
and  eighteen-dollar  flats  furnish  pathetic  commentary 
on  many  a  story  of  fallen  fortunes.  The  furniture  looks 
abashed  and  humbled.  Sometimes  its  rich  designs  have 
found  a  grateful  seclusion  under  the  dust  of  a  quarter 


74  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

century,  which  finally  will  be  removed  by  the  restoring 
processes  of  the  second-hand  dealer,  who  will  even 
tually  become  its  owner. 

There  was  a  beautiful  marquetry  sideboard  in  the 
gray  front  parlor  and  a  fine  scarlet  lacquer  Chinese 
cabinet  facing  it.  Moreau  had  had  the  tall,  gilt-framed 
mirror  and  console  brought  round  The  Horn  from 
New  York  when  he  had  been  in  the  flush  of  good  times 
in  Sacramento.  The  piano  Mariposa  was  playing  dated 
from  a  second  period  of  prosperity,  and  had  cost  what 
would  have  now  kept  them  for  a  year.  It  had  been 
considered  cheap  at  the  time,  and  had  been  bought 
when  the  little  Mariposa  began  to  show  musical  tastes. 
She  had  played  her  first  "pieces"  on  it,  and  in  that 
halcyon  period  when  she  had  had  the  singing  lessons, 
had  heard  the  big  voice  in  her  chest  slowly  shaking 
itself  loose  to  the  accompaniment  of  its  encouraging 
notes. 

Now  she  was  singing  in  single  tones,  from  note  to 
note,  higher  and  higher,  then  lower  and  lower. ,  Her 
voice  was  a  mezzo,  with  a  "break"  in  the  middle,  below 
which  it  had  a  haunting,  bell-like  depth.  As  it  went 
down  it  gained  a  peculiar  emotional  quality  which 
seemed  to  thrill  with  passion  and  tears.  As  it  began 
to  ascend  it  was  noticeable  that  her  upper  tones,  though 
full,  were  harsh.  There  was  astounding  volume  in 
them.  It  was  evidently  a  big  voice,  a  thing  of  noble 
promise,  but  now  crude  and  unmanageable. 

She  emitted  a  loud  vibrant  note  that  rolled  restlessly 
between  the  four  walls,  as  if  in  an  effort  to  find  more 
space  wherein  to  expand,  and  her  hands  fell  upon  the 


HIS   SPLENDID   DAUGHTER  75 

keys.  In  the  room  opening  off  the  parlor  there  was  an 
uncertain  play  of  light  from  an  unseen  fire,  and  a 
muffled  shape  lying  on  the  sofa.  To  this  she  now  ad 
dressed  a  query  in  a  voice  in  which  dejection  was  veiled 
by  uneasy  inquiry : 

"Well,  does  it  seem  to  improve  ?  Or  is  it  still  like  a 
cow  when  she's  lost  her  calf?" 

"It's  wonderfully  improved,"  came  the  answer  from 
the  room  beyond  ;  "I  don't  think  any  one  sings  like  you. 
Anyway,  no  one  has  such  a  powerful  voice." 

"No  one  howls  so,  you  mean!  Oh,  mother,  do  you 
suppose  I  ever  shall  be  able  to  take  any  more  lessons  ?" 

"Oh,  yes,  of  course.  We  are  in  a  large  city  now. 
Even  if  you  don't  make  enough  money  yourself,  there 
are  often  people  who  become  interested  in  fine  voices 
and  educate  them.  Perhaps  you'll  meet  one  of  them 
some  day.  And  anyway — "  with  cheerfulness  caught 
on  the  upward  breath  of  a  sigh — "you'll  make  money 
enough  soon  yourself." 

Mariposa's  head  bent  over  the  keys.  When  she  came 
to  view  it  this  way,  her  sixteen  dollars  a  month  did  not 
seem  so  big  with  promise  as  it  did  when  ten  dollars  for 
rent  was  all  it  had  to  yield  up. 

"I've  heard  about  those  rich  people  who  are  looking 
for  prima  donnas  to  develop,  but  I  don't  know  where 
to  find  them,  and  I  don't  see  how  they're  to  find  me. 
The  only  way  I  can  ever  attract  their  notice  is  to  sing 
on  the  street  corner  with  a  guitar,  like  Rachel.  And 
then  I'd  have  to  have  a  license,  and  I've  got  no  money 
for  that." 

She  rose,  and  swept  with  the  gait  of  a  queen  into 


76  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

the  next  room.  Her  mother  was  lying  on  a  sofa  drawn 
closely  to  a  tiny  grate,  in  which  a  handful  of  fire  flick 
ered. 

Lucy  was  still  a  pretty  woman,  with  a  thin,  faded 
delicacy  of  aspect.  Her  skin  was  singularly  white,  es 
pecially  on  her  hands,  which  were  waxen.  Though 
love  and  happiness  had  given  her  back  her  youth,  her 
health  had  never  recovered  her  child's  rude  birth  in  the 
desert  and  the  subsequent  journey  across  the  Sierra. 
She  had  twined  round  and  clung  to  the  man  whom  she 
had  called  her  husband,  and  with  his  loss  she  was 
slowly  sinking  out  of  the  world  his  presence  had  made 
sweet  for  her.  Her  daughter — next  in  adoration  to  the 
hero  who  had  succored  her  in  her  hour  of  extremity — 
had  no  power  to  hold  her.  Lucy  was  slowly  fading  out 
of  life.  The  girl  had  no  knowledge  of  this.  Her 
mother  had  been  a  semi-invalid  for  several  years,  and 
her  own  youth  was  so  rich  in  its  superb  vigor,  that  she 
did  not  notice  the  elder  woman's  gradual  decline  of 
vitality.  But  the  mother  knew,  and  her  nights  were 
wakeful  and  agonized  with  the  thought  of  her  child, 
left  alone,  poor  and  unfriended. 

Mariposa  sat  down  on  the  end  of  the  sofa  at  the  in 
valid's  feet  and  took  one  of  her  hands.  She  had  loved 
both  parents  deeply,  but  the  fragile  mother,  so  simple 
and  unworldly,  so  dependent  on  affection  for  her  being, 
was  the  object  of  her  special  devotion.  They  were  si 
lent,  the  girl  with  an  abstracted  glance  fixed  on  the  fire, 
meditating  on  the  future  of  her  voice;  the  mother  re 
garding  her  with  pensive  admiration. 

As  they  sat  thus,  a  footfall  on  the  steps  outside 
broke  upon  their  thoughts.  The  cottage  was  so  built 


HIS    SPLENDID   DAUGHTER  77 

that  one  of  its  conveniences  was,  that  one  could  always 
hear  the  caller  or  the  man  with  the  bill  mounting  the 
steps  before  he  rang.  The  former  were  rarer  than  the 
latter,  and  Mariposa,  in  whose  eventless  life  a  visit  from 
any  one  was  a  thing  of  value,  pricked  up  her  ears  ex 
pectantly. 

The  bell  pealed  stridently  and  the  servant  could  be 
heard  rattling  pans  in  the  kitchen,  evidently  prepara 
tory  to  emerging.  Presently  she  came  creaking  down 
the  hall,  the  door  opened  and  a  female  voice  was  heard 
asking  for  the  ladies.  It  was  a  visitor.  Mariposa  was 
glad  she  had  stayed  in  that  afternoon,  and  with  her 
hand  still  clasping  her  mother's,  craned  her  neck 
toward  the  door. 

The  visitor  was  a  tall,  thin  woman  of  forty  years, 
her  cheaply  fashionable  dress  telling  of  many  a  wres 
tle  between  love  of  personal  adornment  and  a  lean 
purse.  She  was  one  of  those  slightly  known  and  un- 
questioningly  accepted  people  that  women,  in  the 
friendless  and  unknown  condition  of  the  Moreaus,  con 
stantly  meet  in  the  free  and  easy  social  life  of  western 
cities. 

She  was  a  Mrs.  Willers,  long  divorced  from  a  worth 
less  husband,  and  supporting,  with  a  desperate  and 
gallant  courage,  herself  and  her  child,  who  was  one  of 
Mariposa's  piano  pupils.  Her  appearance  gave  no  clue 
to  the  real  force  and  indomitable  bravery  of  the  woman, 
who,  against  blows  and  rebuffs,  had  fought  her  way 
with  a  smile  on  her  lips.  Her  appearance  and  manner, 
especially  in  this,  her  society  pose,  were  against  her. 
The  former  was  flashy  and  overdressed,  the  latter  loud- 
voiced  and  effusive.  A  large  hat,  flaunting  with  funer- 


78  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

al  plumes,  was  set  jauntily  on  one  side  of  her  head, 
and  a  spotted  veil  was  drawn  over  a  complexion  that 
was  carelessly  made  up.  Her  corsets  were  so  long  and 
so  tight  that  she  could  hardly  bend,  and  when  she  did 
they  emitted  protesting  creaks.  No  one  would  have 
thought  from  her  flamboyantly  stylish  get-up  that  she 
was  a  reporter  and  "special"  writer  on  Jake  Shackle- 
ton's  newly  acquired  paper,  The  Morning  Trumpet! 
But  in  reality  she  was  an  energetic  and  able  journalist. 
It  was  only  when  adorned  with  her  best  clothes  and  her 
"society"  manners  that  she  affected  a  sort  of  gushing 
silliness. 

"Well,"  she  said,  rustling  in,  "here's  the  lady! 
How's  everybody?  Just  as  cozy  and  cute  as  a  doll's 
house." 

She  pressed  Mrs.  Moreau's  hand  and  then  sent  an 
eagle  glance — the  glance  of  the  reporter  that  is  trained 
to  take  in  every  salient  object  in  one  sweep — about  the 
room.  She  could  have  written  a  good  description  of  it 
from  that  moment's  survey. 

"Better?  Of  course  you're  better,"  she  interrupted 
Lucy,  who  had  been  speaking  of  improved  health. 
"Don't  San  Francisco  cure  everybody?  And  daughter 
there  ?"  her  bright  tired  eye  rested  on  Mariposa  for  one 
inspecting  moment.  "She  looks  nice  enough  to  eat." 

"Mariposa's  always  well,"  said  Lucy,  pressing  the 
hand  she  still  held.  "She  was  always  a  prize  child  ever 
since  she  was  a  baby." 

Mrs.  Willers  leaned  back  and  folded  her  white 
gloved  hands  over  her  creaking  waist. 

"You  know  she's  the  handsomest  thing  I've  seen  in  a 


HIS    SPLENDID   DAUGHTER  79 

coon's  age,"  she  said,  nodding  her  head  at  Mariposa. 
"There  ain't  a  girl  in  society  that  compares  to  her." 

Lucy  smiled  indulgently  at  her  daughter.  Mariposa, 
though  embarrassed,  was  not  displeased  by  these 
sledge-hammer  compliments.  They  were  a  novelty  to 
her,  and  she  regarded  Mrs.  Willers — despite  a  few  pe 
culiarities  of  style — as  a  woman  of  vast  knowledge  and 
experience  in  that  wonderful  world  of  gaiety  and 
fashion,  of  which  she  herself  knew  so  little. 

"I  go  to  most  of  the  big  balls  here,"  continued  the 
visitor.  "It's  always  the  same  thing  on  The  Trumpet — 
'Send  up  Mrs.  Willers  to  the  Cotillion  Club  to-night ; 
we  don't  want  any  other  reporter  but  her.  If  you  send 
up  any  of  those  other  jay  women  we'll  turn  'em  down.' 
So  up  I  have  to  hop.  The  other  night  at  the  Lorley's 
big  blow-out,  when  Genevieve  Lorley  had  her  debut,  it 
was  the  same  old  war-cry — 'We  want  Mrs.  Willers  to 
night  to  do  the  Society,  and  don't  try  and  work  off  any 
incompetents  on  us.  Send  her  up  early  so's  Mrs.  Lor 
ley  can  give  her  the  dresses  herself.'  So  up  I  went,  and 
was  in  the  dressing-room  for  an  hour  and  saw  'em  all, 
black  and  white  and  brown,  heiresses  and  beggars,  and 
not  one  of  'em,  Mrs.  Moreau,  to  touch  daughter  here — 
not  one." 

"But  there  are  so  many  beautiful  girls  in  San  Fran 
cisco.  Mariposa  has  seen  them  on  the  cars  and  down 
town.  She  often  tells  me  of  them." 

"Beauties — yes,  lots  of  'em ;  dead  loads  of  'em.  But 
there's  a  lot  that  get  their  beauty  out  of  boxes  and  bot 
tles.  There's  a  lot — I  don't  say  who,  I'm  not  one  to 
mention  names — but  there's  a  lot  that  when  they  go  to 


80  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

bed  the  beauty  all  comes  off  and  lies  in  layers  on  the 
floor.  Not  that  I  blame  them — make  yourself  as  good- 
looking  as  you  can,  that's  my  motto.  It's  every  wom 
an's  duty.  But  you  don't  want  to  begin  so  young.  I 
rouge  myself,"  said  Mrs.  Willers,  with  the  careless 
truthfulness  of  one  whose  reputation  is  beyond  attack, 
"but  I  don't  like  it  in  a  young  girl." 

"Who  was  the  prettiest  girl  at  the  ball  ?"  said  Mari- 
posa,  deeply  interested.  She  had  the  curiosity  of  seven 
teen  on  such  subjects — subjects  of  which  her  girlhood 
had  been  unusually  barren. 

"My  dear,  I'll  tell  you  all  that  later — talk  for  an  hour 
if  you  can  stand  it.  But  that's  not  what  I  came  to  say 
to-day.  It's  business  to-day — real  business,  and  I  don't 
know  but  what  all  your  future  hangs  on  it." 

She  gave  a  triumphant  look  at  the  startled  mother 
and  daughter.  With  the  introduction  of  serious  mat 
ter  her  worn  face  took  on  a  certain  sharp  intelligence 
and  her  language  grew  more  masculine  and  less  slov 
enly. 

"It's  this,"  she  said,  leaning  forward  impressively : 
"I'm  not  sure  that  I  haven't  found  Mariposa's  backer." 

"Backer,"  said  Lucy,  faintly,  finding  the  word  ob 
jectionable.  "What's  that  ?" 

"The  person  who's  to  hear  her  sing  and  offer  to  edu 
cate  the  finest  voice  he's  likely  to  hear  in  the  next  ten 
years." 

Mariposa  gave  a  suppressed  exclamation  and  looked 
at  her  mother.  Lucy  had  paled.  She  was  trembling  at 
what  she  felt  she  was  to  hear. 

"It's  Jake  Shackleton,"  said  Mrs.  Willers,  proudly 
launching  her  bombshell. 


HIS    SPLENDID   DAUGHTER  81 

"Jake  Shackleton,"  breathed  Mariposa,  to  whom  the 
name  meant  only  vaguely  fabulous  wealth.  "The  Bo 
nanza  Man  ?" 

Lucy  was  sitting  up,  deadly  pale,  but  she  said 
nothing. 

"The  Bonanza  Man,"  said  Mrs.  Willers.  "My  chief." 

"But  what  does  he  know  of  me?"  said  Mariposa. 
"He's  never  even  heard  of  me." 

"That's  where  you're  off,  my  dear.  Jake  Shackle- 
ton's  heard  of  everybody.  He  has  every  one  ticketed 
and  put  away  in  some  little  cell  in  his  brain.  He  never 
forgets  a  face.  Some  people  say  that's  one  of  the  se 
crets  of  his  success ;  that,  and  the  way  he  knows  the 
man  or  woman  who's  going  to  get  on  and  the  one 
who's  going  to  fall  out  of  the  procession  and  quit  at 
the  first  obstacle.  He's  got  no  use  for  those  people. 
Get  up  and  hustle,  or  get  out — that's  his  motto." 

"But  about  me?"  Mariposa  entreated.   "Go  on." 

"Well,  it's  a  queer  story,  anyhow.  The  other  morn 
ing  I  was  sent  for  to  the  sanctum.  There  was  a  little 
talk  about  work  and  then  he  says  to  me,  'Didn't  you 
tell  me  your  daughter  was  taking  piano  lessons,  Mrs. 
Willers?'  Never  forgets  a  word  you  say.  I  told  him 
yes ;  and  he  says :  'Isn't  her  teacher  that  Miss  Moreau, 
whose  father  died  a  few  months  ago  in  Santa  Barbara  ?' 
I  told  him  yes  again,  and  then  he  wheels  round  on  the 
swivel  chair,  looks  at  me  so,  from  under  his  eyebrows, 
and  says :  'I  knew  her  father  once ;  a  fine  man !' ' 

"Oh,  how  odd,"  breathed  Mariposa,  quivering  with 
interest.  "I  never  heard  father  speak  of  him." 

"It  was  a  long  time  ago.  He  knew  your  father  up  in 
the  mines  some  time  in  the  fifties,  and  he  said  he  ad- 


82  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

mired  him  considerably.  Then  he  went  on  and  asked 
me  a  lot  of  questions  about  you,  your  circumstances, 
where  you  lived  and  if  you  were  as  good-looking  as 
your  father.  He  said  he'd  heard  you  were  an  accom 
plished  young  lady.  Then  I  saw  my  cue  and  I  said,  as 
carelessly  as  you  please,  that  Miss  Moreau  had  a  fine 
voice  and  plenty  of  musical  ability,  but  unfortunately 
was  not  able  to  cultivate  either,  because  her  means 
were  small,  and  it  was  a  great  pity  some  one  with 
money  didn't  help  her.  I  says — just  as  casual  as  could 
be — it's  a  great  shame  to  see  a  voice  like  that  lying  idle 
for  want  of  tuition." 

"What  did  he  say  then  ?"  said  Mariposa. 

"Well,  that's  the  point  I'm  working  up  to.  He 
thought  a  while,  asked  a  few  more  questions,  and  then 
said:  'I'd  like  to  meet  the  young  lady  and  hear  her 
sing.  It  goes  against  me  to  have  Dan  Moreau's  daugh 
ter  lack  for  anything.  Her  father'd  have  left  a  fortune 
if  he  hadn't  been  a  man  that  thought  of  every  one  else 
before  himself.' " 

"That  was  father  exactly.  He  must  have  known  him 
well.  Mother,  isn't  it  odd  he  never  spoke  of  him? 
What  did  you  say  then  ?" 

"I?  Why,  of  course,  I  saw  my  opening  and  jumped 
in.  I  said,  'Well,  I  guess  I  can  arrange  for  you  to  meet 
Miss  Moreau  at  my  rooms.  I  see  her  twice  a  week 
when  she  comes  to  give  Edna  her  piano  lesson.  I'll  ask 
her  when  she  can  come,  and  let  you  know  and  then 
she'll  sing  for  you.'  He  was  pleased,  he  was  real 
pleased,  and  said  he'd  come  whenever  I  said.  And  now, 
young  woman,"  laying  a  large  white-gloved  hand  on 


HIS    SPLENDID    DAUGHTER  83 

Mariposa's  knee,  "that  ought  to  be  the  beginning  of  a 
career  for  you !" 

"Good  gracious !"  said  Mariposa,  whose  cheeks  were 
crimson,  "I  never  heard  anything  so  exciting  in  my 
life,  and  we  were  just  talking  about  it.  I'll  probably 
sing  like  a  dog  baying  the  moon." 

"Don't  you  talk  that  way.  You'll  sing  your  best.  And 
he's  not  a  man  that  you  wouldn't  like  Mariposa  to 
meet" — turning  to  the  pale  and  silent  Lucy.  "What 
ever  other  faults  he's  had  he's  always  been  a  straight 
man  with  women.  There's  never  been  that  sort  of 
scandal  about  Jake  Shackleton.  There's  a  story  you've 
probably  heard,  that  he  was  originally  a  Mormon.  I 
don't  believe  much  in  that  myself.  He  had,  anyway, 
only  one  wife  when  he  entered  California,  and  she's 
been  his  wife  ever  since,  and  she  ain't  the  kind  to  have 
stood  any  nonsense  of  the  Mormon  sort." 

Lucy  gave  a  sudden  gasping  breath  and  sat  up.  The 
light  of  the  gray  afternoon  was  dying  outside,  and  by 
the  glow  of  the  fire  her  unusual  pallor  was  not  notice 
able. 

"It  was  very  good  of  you,"  she  said.  "Mariposa  will 
be  glad  to  go." 

"And  you'll  come,  too?"  said  Mrs.  Willers.  "He 
asked  about  you." 

"Did  he  say  he'd  ever  known  me?"  said  Lucy, 
quietly. 

"No — not  exactly  that.  No,  I  don't  believe  he  said 
that.  But  he  was  interested  in  you  as  the  wife  of  the 
man  he'd  known  so  long  ago." 

"Of  course  it  would  be  only  in  that  way,"  murmured 


84  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Lucy,  sinking  back.  "No,  I  can't  come.  It  wouldn't 
be  possible.  I'm  not  well  enough." 

"Oh,  mother,  do.  You  know  you  go  out  on  the  cars 
sometimes,  and  the  Sutter  Street  line  is  only  two 
blocks  from  here.  I  know  you'd  enjoy  it  when  you  got 
there." 

"No,  dearest.  No,  Mrs.  Willers.  Don't,  please,  urge 
me.  I  am  not  able  to  meet  new  people.  No —  Oh, 
please  don't  talk  any  more  about  my  going." 

Something  of  pain  and  protest  in  her  voice  made 
them  desist.  She  was  silent  again,  while  Mariposa  and 
Mrs.  Willers  arranged  the  details  of  the  party.  This 
was  to  be  small  and  choice.  Only  one  other  person,  a 
man  referred  to  as  Essex,  was  to  come.  At  the  name  of 
Essex,  Mrs.  Willers  shot  a  side  look  of  inspection  at 
Mariposa,  who  did  what  was  expected  of  her  in  dis 
playing  a  fine  blush. 

It  was  decided  that  Mrs.  Willers'  hospitality  should 
take  the  form  of  wine  and  cake.  There  was  a  consul 
tation  about  other  and  lesser  viands,  and  finally  an  ani 
mated  discussion  as  to  the  proper  garb  in  which  Mari 
posa  should  present  herself  to  the  first  truly  distin 
guished  person  she  had  ever  met.  During  the  conver 
sation  over  these  varied  questions  Lucy  lay  back 
among  her  cushions,  sunk  in  the  same  pale  silence. 

Darkness  had  fallen  when  the  guest,  having  threshed 
out  the  subject  to  the  last  grain,  took  herself  off.  Mari 
posa  looked  from  the  opened  doorway  into  a  black 
street,  dotted  with  the  yellow  blurs  of  lighted  lamps. 
The  air  was  cold  with  that  penetrating,  marrow- 
searching  coldness  of  a  foggy  evening  in  San  Fran- 


HIS    SPLENDID   DAUGHTER  85 

cisco.  As  the  night  swallowed  Mrs.  Willers,  Mariposa 
shut  the  door  and  came  rushing  back. 

"Mother!"  she  cried,  before  she  got  into  her  room, 
"isn't  that  the  most  thrilling  thing?  Oh,  did  you  ever 
know  of  anything  so  unexpected  and  wonderful  and 
exciting.  Do  you  think  he'll  like  my  voice?  Do  you 
think  he  really  could  be  interested  in  me  because  he 
knew  father?  And  he  can't  have  known  him  so  very 
well,  or  father  would  have  said  more  of  him.  Did  you 
ever  hear  father  speak  about  him  ?" 

The  mother  gave  no  answer,  and  the  girl  bent  over 
her.  Lucy,  motionless  and  white,  was  lying  among  her 
cushions,  unconscious. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    MILLIONAIRE 

"And  one  man  in  his  time  plays  many  parts." 

— SHAKESPEARE, 

At  two  o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  her  party  Mrs. 
Willers  was  giving-  the  finishing  touches  to  her  rooms. 
These  were  a  sitting  and  bed-room  in  one  of  the  large 
boarding-houses  that  already  had  begun  to  make  their 
appearance  along  Sutter  Street.  "To  reside"  on  Sut- 
ter  Street,  as  she  would  have  expressed  it,  was  a  step 
in  fashion  for  Mrs.  Willers,  who  previously  had  lived 
in  such  ignominious  localities  as  North  Beach  and 
upper  Market  Street,  renting  the  surplus  rooms  in 
dingy  "private  families."  Her  rise  to  fairer  fortunes 
was  signalized  by  the  move  to  Sutter  Street.  Her  par 
lor  announced  it  in  its  over-furnished  brilliancy.  All 
the  best  furniture  of  the  poor  lady's  many  migrations 
had  been  squeezed  into  the  little  room.  The  Japanese 
fans  and  umbrellas,  flattened  against  the  walls  with 
pins,  were  accumulated  at  some  cost,  for  they  repre 
sented  one  of  those  strange  and  unaccountable  vaga 
ries  of  popular  taste  that  from  time  to  time  seize  a 
community  with  blighting  force.  Silk  scarfs  were 
twisted  about  everything  whereon  they  could  twist. 

86 


THE    MILLIONAIRE  87 

The  "lunch,"  as  the  hostess  called  it,  had  already 
been  prepared  and  stood  on  a  side  table.  Edna,  Mrs. 
Willers'  daughter,  had  made  many  trips  up  and  down 
the  street  that  morning  collecting  its  component  parts 
and  bringing  them  home  in  paper  bags.  The  ladies  in 
the  lower  windows  of  the  house  had  been  aware  of 
these  goings  and  comings,  and  so  were  partly  pre 
pared  when,  at  luncheon,  Mrs.  Willers  casually  told 
them  of  the  distinguished  guest  she  expected.  The 
newspaper  woman  had  not  lived  her  life  with  her  eyes 
shut  and  her  ears  closed,  and  she  knew  the  value  to 
the  fraction  of  a  hair  of  this  information,  and  just 
how  much  it  would  add  to  her  prestige. 

She  was  now  fluttering  about  in  a  wrapper,  and  with 
a  piece  of  black  net  tied  tight  over  her  forehead. 
Through  this  the  forms  of  dark  circular  curls  outlined 
themselves  like  silhouettes.  Mrs.  Willers  had  no  war 
paint  on,  and  though  she  looked  a  trifle  worn,  was 
much  more  attractive  in  appearance  than  when  deco 
rated  with  her  pink  and  white  complexion  and  her 
spotted  veil.  Edna,  who  was  already  dressed,  was  a 
beautiful,  fair-haired  child  of  twelve.  The  struggles 
she  had  seen  her  mother  pass  through,  with  her  eyes 
bright  and  her  head  high,  had  developed  in  her  a  pre 
cocity  of  mind  that  had  not  spoiled  the  sweet  childish 
ness  of  a  charming  nature.  It  would  be  many  years 
yet  before  Edna  would  understand  that  she  had  been 
the  sheet-anchor  of  the  mother  who  was  to  her  so 
clever  and  so  brave ;  the  mother,  who,  in  her  moments 
of  weakness  and  temptation,  had  found  her  child  the 
one  rock  to  cling  to  in  the  welter  of  life. 

Mrs.  Willers  retired  to  the  bedroom  to  dress,  occa- 


88  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

sionally  coming  to  the  doorway  in  various  stages  of 
deshabille  to  give  instructions  to  the  child.  Her  toilet 
was  accomplished  with  mutilated  rites,  and  by  the  time 
the  sacrificial  moment  came  of  laying  on  the  rouge  her 
cheeks  were  too  flushed  with  excitement  to  need  it. 
When  she  did  appear  it  would  have  been  difficult  to 
recognize  her  as  the  woman  of  an  hour  earlier.  Even 
the  black  silhouettes  had  passed  through  a  metamor 
phosis  and  appeared  as  a  fluff  of  careless  curls. 

The  first  guest  to  arrive  was  the  man  she  had  spoken 
of  as  Essex.  The  ladies  at  the  windows  below  had 
been  struck  into  whispering  surprise  by  his  appear 
ance.  San  Francisco  was  still  enjoying  its  original 
reputation  as  a  land  of  picturesque  millionaires,  who 
lived  lives  of  lawlessness  and  splendor.  Men  of  posi 
tion  still  wore  soft  felt  hats  and  buttoned  themselves 
tight  into  prince-albert  coats  when  they  went  down  to 
business  in  the  morning.  Perhaps  in  the  traveled  cir 
cles,  where  the  Bonanza  kings  and  their  associates 
lived  after  European  models,  there  were  men  who  bore 
the  stamp  of  metropolitan  finish,  as  Barry  Essex  did. 
But  they  did  not  visit  Sutter  Street  boarding-houses 
nor  wear  silk  hats  when  they  paid  afternoon  calls.  San 
Francisco  was  still  in  that  stage  when  this  form  of 
headgear  was  principally  associated  in  its  mind  with 
the  men  who  drew  teeth  and  sold  patent  medicines  on 
the  sand  lots  behind  the  city  hall. 

Barry  Essex,  anywhere,  would  have  been  a  striking 
figure.  He  was  a  handsome  man  of  some  thirty  years, 
tall  and  spare,  and  with  a  dark,  smooth-shaven  face 
where  the  nose  was  high  and  the  eyes  veiled  and  cold. 
He  looked  like  a  person  of  high  birth,  and  there  were 


THE    MILLIONAIRE  89 

stories  that  he  was,  though  by  the  left  hand.  He 
spoke  with  an  English  accent,  and,  when  asked  his 
nationality,  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  said  it  was 
hard  to  say  what  it  was — his  father  had  been  a  Span 
iard,  his  mother  an  Englishwoman,  and  he  had  been 
born  and  reared  in  France. 

That  he  was  a  man  of  ability  and  education,  superior 
to  the  work  he  was  doing  as  special  writer  on  Jake 
Shackleton's  paper,  The  Trumpet,  was  obvious.  But 
San  Francisco  had  become  so  used  to  mysteriously  in 
teresting  strangers,  that  come  from  no  one  knows 
where,  and  suggest  an  attractively  unconventional  his 
tory,  that  the  particular  curiosity  excited  by  Essex  soon 
died,  and  he  was  merely  of  moment  as  the  author  of 
some  excellent  articles  on  art,  literature  and  music  in 
The  Sunday  Trumpet. 

He  greeted  Mrs.  Willers  with  a  friendly  fellowship, 
then  let  a  quick,  surreptitious  glance  sweep  the  room. 
She  saw  it,  knew  what  he  was  looking  for,  but  affected 
unconsciousness.  His  manner  was  touched  by  the 
slightest  suggestion  of  something  elaborate  and  the 
atrical,  which,  in  Mrs.  Willers'  mind,  seemed  to  have 
some  esoteric  connection  with  the  silk  hat.  This  he 
now — after  slowly  looking  about  for  a  safe  place  of 
deposit — handed  to  Edna  with  the  careless  remark: 
"Will  you  put  this  down  somewhere,  Edna  ?" 

The  child  took  it,  flushing  slightly.  She  was  accus 
tomed  to  being  made  much  of  by  her  mother's  guests, 
and  Essex's  manner  stung  her  little  girl's  pride.  But 
she  put  the  hat  on  the  piano  and  retired  to  her  corner, 
behind  the  refreshment  table. 

A  few  moments  later  she  opened  the  door  to  Jake 


90  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Shackleton.  Mrs.  Willers,  red-cheeked  and  trium 
phant,  felt  that  this  was  indeed  a  proud  moment  for 
her.  She  said  as  much,  drawing  an  amused  laugh 
from  her  second  guest.  He,  too,  had  swept  the  room 
with  a  quick,  investigating  glance.  This  time  Mrs. 
Willers  did  not  affect  unconsciousness,  and  said 
briskly : 

"No,  our  young  lady  hasn't  come  yet.  You'll  have 
to  try  and  put  up  with  me  for  a  while." 

It  would  have  been  difficult  for  the  eye  of  the  deepest 
affection  to  see  in  the  Comstock  millionaire  the  emi 
grant  of  twenty-live  years  before.  A  mother  might 
have  been  deceived.  The  lean  figure  had  grown  chunky 
and  heavy.  The  drawn  face  was  now  not  full — it  was 
the  type  of  face  that  would  never  be  full — but  was  lack 
ing  in  the  seams  that  had  then  furrowed  it.  The  hair 
was  gray,  worn  thin  on  the  temples,  and  the  beard, 
trimmed  and  well-tended,  was  gray,  too.  Perhaps  the 
strongest  tie  with  the  past  was  that  the  man  suggested 
the  same  hard,  fine-drawn,  wiry  energy.  It  still  shone 
in  his  narrow,  light-colored  eyes,  and  still  was  to  be 
seen  in  his  lean,  muscular  hand,  that  was  frequently 
used  in  gesticulation. 

In  manner  the  change  was  equally  apparent.  Though 
colloquial,  his  speech  showed  none  of  the  coarse  illiter- 
ateness  of  the  past.  His  manner  was  quiet,  abruptly 
natural,  and  not  lacking  in  a  sort  of  easy  dignity,  the 
dignity  of  the  man  who  has  won  his  place  among  men. 
He  was  dressed  with  the  utmost  simplicity.  His  soft 
felt  wide-awake  was  not  new,  his  black  prince-albert 
coat  did  not  fit  him  with  anything  like  the  elegance 
with  which  Barry  Essex's  outlined  his  fine  shape.  A 


THE    MILLIONAIRE  91 

little  purple  cravat  tied  in  a  bow  appeared  from  be 
neath  his  turned-down  collar.  It  was  somewhat  shiny 
from  the  brushing  of  his  beard. 

"You  must  suppose  I'm  anxious  to  see  this  young 
lady,"  he  said,  "after  what  you've  told  me  about  her." 

"Well,  ask  Mr.  Essex  if  I've  exaggerated,"  said  Mrs. 
Willers.  "He  knows  her,  too." 

"I  don't  know  what  you've  said,''  he  returned,  "but 
I  don't  think  anything  could  be  too  complimentary  that 
was  said  of  Miss  Moreau." 

"Eh ! — better  and  better,"  said  the  elder  man.  "I 
didn't  know  you  knew  her,  Essex?" 

He  turned  his  gray  eyes,  absolutely  cold  and  non 
committal  on  Essex,  who  answered  them  with  an 
equally  expressionless  gaze. 

"I've  known  Miss  Moreau  for  three  months,"  he  re 
plied.  "I  met  her  here." 

Shackleton  turned  back  to  Mrs.  Willers. 

"I  understand  from  you,  Mrs.  Willers,  that  these 
ladies  are  left  extremely  badly  off.  Are  they  absolute 
ly  without  means?" 

"No-o,"  she  answered,  "not  exactly  that.  Mr.  Mo 
reau  left  a  life  insurance  policy  of  five  thousand  dol 
lars.  Mariposa  tells  me  that  three  thousand  of  that 
went  to  pay  his  doctors'  bills  and  funeral  expenses. 
He  was  sick  a  long  time.  They  are  now  living  on 
their  capital,  and  they've  been  here  four  months,  and 
Mrs.  Moreau  has  constant  medical  attendance." 

The  millionaire  gave  a  little  click  of  his  tongue  sig 
nificant  of  annoyance. 

"Moreau  had  a  dozen  chances  of  making  his  pile,  as 
every  man  did  in  those  days,"  he  said.  "He  was  the 


92  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

sort  of  man  who  is  predestined  to  leave  his  family 
poor." 

"Yet  they  worship  his  memory,"  said  Mrs.  Willers. 
"He  must  have  been  very  good  to  them." 

Shackleton  made  no  answer.  She  was  used  to  read 
ing  his  expression,  and  the  odd  thought  crossed  her 
mind  that  this  remark  of  hers  was  unpleasant  to  him. 

Before  she  had  time  to  reply  a  knock  at  the  door 
announced  the  arrival  of  Mariposa.  As  she  entered 
the  two  men  stood  up,  both  looking  at  her  with  veiled 
eagerness.  To  Essex  his  feeling  for  her  was  making 
her  every  appearance  an  event.  To  Shackleton  it  was 
a  moment  of  quivering  interest  in  a  career  full  of 
tumultuous  moments. 

A  slight  flush  mounted  to  his  face  as  he  met  her 
eyes.  She  instinctively  looked  at  him  first,  with  a 
charming  look,  girlish,  shy,  and  deprecating.  Her 
likeness  to  her  mother  struck  him  like  a  blow,  but  she 
was  an  Amazonian  Lucy,  with  all  that  Lucy  had  lacked. 
He  saw  himself  in  the  stronger  jaw  and  the  firm  lips. 
JPhysically  she  was  molded  of  them  both.  His  heart 
swelled  with  a  passionate  pride.  This,  indeed,  was  his 
own  child,  bone  of  his  bone,  and  flesh  of  his  flesh. 

The  introductions  over,  they  resettled  themselves, 
and  Mariposa  found  herself  beside  this  quiet,  gray- 
haired  man,  talking  quite  volubly.  She  was  not  shy 
nor  nervous,  as  she  had  expected  to  be,  but  felt  pe 
culiarly  at  her  ease.  Looking  at  her  with  intent  eyes, 
he  spoke  to  her  of  the  early  days  in  California,  when 
he  and  her  parents  had  come  across. 

"You  know,  I  knew  your  father  in  the  Sierra,  long 
ago,"  he  said. 


"TO    SIIACKI.KTON"    IT    WAS    A    MOMKNT    OF    QUIVERING    INTEREST 


THE    MILLIONAIRE  93 

"Yes,"  she  answered  rather  hurriedly,  fearful  lest 
he  should  ask  her  if  her  father  had  not  spoken  of  him, 
"so  Mrs.  Willers  said.  It  must  have  been  a  long  time 
ago.  Was  I  there  ?"  she  added  with  a  little  smile. 

He  was  taken  aback  by  the  question  and  said,  stam- 
meringly : 

"Well,  really  now,  I — I — don't  quite  remember." 

"I  guess  I  wasn't,"  she  said  laughing.  "You  must 
have  known  father  before  that.  He  came  over  in 
forty-nine,  you  know.  I  was  born  twenty-four  years 
ago  up  in  the  mountains,  in  Eldorado  County,  in  a  lit 
tle  cabin  miles  above  Placerville.  Mother's  often  de 
scribed  the  place  to  me.  They  left  soon  after." 

He  lowered  his  eyes.  He  was  a  man  of  no  senti 
ment  or  tenderness,  yet  something  in  this  false  state 
ment,  uttered  so  innocently  by  these  fresh  young  lips, 
and  taught  with  all  the  solicitude  of  love  to  this  simple 
nature,  pierced  like  an  arrow  to  the  live  spot  in  his 
deadened  conscience. 

"It  was  more  than  twenty-five  years  ago  that  I  was 
there,"  he  said.  "You  evidently  were  not  born  then." 

"But  my  mother  was  there  then.  Do  you  think  I 
look  like  her?  My  father  thought  I  was  wonderfully 
like  her." 

He  looked  into  the  candid  face.  Memories  of  Lucy 
before  his  own  harsh  treatment  and  the  hardships  of 
her  life  had  broken  her,  stirred  in  him. 

"Yes,"  he  said  slowly,  "you're  very  like  her.  But 
you're  like  your  father,  too." 

"Am  I?"  she  cried,  evidently  delighted.  "Do  you 
really  think  so  ?  I  do  want  to  look  like  my  father." 

"Why  ?"  he  could  not  help  asking. 


94  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

She  stared  at  him  surprised. 

"Wouldn't  you  like  to  look  like  both  your  parents, 
if  they  were  the  two  finest  people  in  the  world  ?'' 

Here  Mrs.  Willers  cut  short  the  conversation  by 
asking  Mariposa  to  sing.  The  girl  rose  and  went  di 
rectly  to  the  piano.  For  days  this  moment  had 
been  looming  before  her  in  nightmare  proportions. 
She  was  feverishly  anxious  to  do  her  best  and  sicke.n- 
ingly  fearful  of  failure.  Now  her  confidence  was  un 
shaken.  Something — impossible  to  say  just  what — 
had  reassured  her.  Her  hands  were  trembling  a  little 
as  she  struck  the  keys,  and  her  first  notes  showed  the 
oscillation  of  nervousness,  but  soon  the  powerful  voice 
began  to  come  more  under  her  control,  and  she  poured 
it  out  exultantly.  She  never  sang  better.  Her  voice, 
much  too  large  for  the  small  space,  was  almost  pain 
ful  in  its  resonant  force. 

Of  the  two  men  the  elder  was  without  musical 
knowledge  of  any  kind.  He  was  amazed  and  delighted 
at  what  seemed  to  him  an  astonishing  performance. 
But  Essex  knew  that  with  the  proper  training  and 
guidance  there  were  possibilities  of  a  brilliant  future 
for  this  handsome  and  penniless  young  woman.  He 
had  lived  much  among  professional  singers,  and  he 
knew  that  Mariposa  Moreau  possessed  an  unusual 
voice.  For  reasons  of  his  own  he  did  not  desire  her  to 
know  her  own  power,  and  he  was  secretly  irritated 
that  she  had  sung  so  well. 

She  continued,  Shackleton  requesting  another,  and 
yet  another  song.  Only  the  clock  chiming  four  roused 
him  to  the  fact  that  he  must  go.  He  was  living  at  his 
country  place  at  Menlo  Park  and  had  to  catch  a  train. 


THE    MILLIONAIRE  95 

He  left  them  with  assurances  of  his  delight  in  the 
performance.  To  Mariposa,  as  he  pressed  her  hand  in 
farewell,  he  said : 

"I'll  see  you  again.  You've  a  wonderful  voice, 
there's  no  mistake  about  that.  It's  a  gift,  a  great  gift, 
and  it  must  have  its  chance." 

The  girl,  carried  away  with  the  triumph  of  the  after 
noon,  said  gaily : 

"I'll  sing  for  you  whenever  you  like.  Could  you 
never  come  up  to  our  cottage  on  Pine  Street  and  meet 
my  mother?  I  know  she  would  like  to  see  you." 

The  slightest  possible  look  of  surprise  passed  over 
his  face,  gone  almost  as  soon  as  it  had  come.  Mari 
posa  saw  it,  however,  and  felt  embarrassed.  She  evi 
dently  had  been  too  forward,  and  looked  down,  blush 
ing  and  uncomfortable.  He  recovered  himself  imme 
diately,  and  said : 

"Not  now,  much  as  I  should  like  to,  Miss  Moreau. 
I  am  living  at  Menlo  Park,  and  all  my  spare  time 
when  business  is  over  is  spent  in  catching  trains.  But 
give  your  mother  my  compliments  on  the  possession  of 
such  a  daughter." 

Mariposa  and  Essex  stayed  chatting  with  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers  for  some  time  after  Shackleton's  departure.  The 
clock  had  chimed  more  than  once,  when  finally  they 
left,  and  their  hostess,  exhausted,  but  exultant,  threw 
herself  back  in  a  chair  and  watched  Edna  gather  up 
the  remains  of  the  lunch. 

"Put  the  cakes  in  the  tin,  dearie.  They'll  do  for  to 
morrow,  and  be  sure  and  cork  the  bottle  tight.  There's 
enough  for  another  time." 

"Several  other  times,"  said  Edna,  holding  the  bottle 


96  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

of  port  wine  up  to  the  light  and  squinting  at  it  with 
her  head  on  one  side.  "It  was  a  cheap  party — they 
hardly  drank  anything." 

Mariposa  and  her  companion  walked  up  Sutter 
Street  with  the  lagging  step  of  people  who  find  each 
other  excellent  company. 

It  was  the  end  of  a  warm  afternoon  in  September, 
one  of  those  still,  deeply  flushed  evenings  when  the 
air  is  tepid  and  smells  of  distant  fires,  and  the  winged 
ants  come  out  of  the  rotting  sidewalks  by  the  thou 
sand.  The  west  was  a  clear,  thin  red  smudged  with 
brown  smoke.  The  houses  grew  dark  and  ever  darker, 
and  seemed  to  loom  more  solidly  black  every  moment. 
They  looked  dreamlike  and  mysterious  against  the  fiery 
background. 

"How  did  you  like  it?"  said  Mariposa,  as  they 
loitered  on,  "my  singing,  I  mean  ?" 

"It  was  excellent,  of  course.  You've  got  a  voice. 
But  the  room  was  too  small — and  such  a  room  to  sing 
in,  all  crowded  with  ridiculous  things." 

Mariposa  felt  hurt.  She  thought  Essex  was  the 
finest,  the  most  elegant  and  finished  person  she  had 
ever  met.  He  seemed  to  her  to  breathe  the  atmosphere 
of  those  great  sophisticated  cities  she  had  never  seen. 
In  his  talks  with  her  he  now  and  then  chilled  her  by 
his  suggestion  of  belonging  to  another  and  a  wiser 
world,  to  which  she  was  a  provincial  outsider. 

This  quality  was  in  his  manner  now,  and  she  began 
to  feel  how  raw  her  poor  performance  must  have 
seemed  to  the  man  who  had  heard  the  great  prima 
donnas  of  London  and  Paris. 


THE   MILLIONAIRE  97 

"It  was  a  small  room,  of  course,"  she  assented,  "but 
I  had  to  sing  somewhere,  and  I  couldn't  hire  a  place." 

"Shackleton  wanted  to  hear  you,  as  I  understand  it. 
Mrs.  Willers  said  something  about  his  knowing  your 
father." 

There  was  no  question  about  the  coldness  of  his  voice 
now.  Had  Mariposa  known  more  about  men  she 
would  have  seen  he  was  irritated. 

She  repeated  the  fable  of  her  father's  early  ac 
quaintance  with  Jake  Shackleton,  and  of  the  latter's 
desire  expressed  to  Mrs.  Willers,  of  hearing  her  sing. 

"Mrs.  Willers  is  such  an  ass!"  he  said  suddenly 
and  vindictively. 

Mariposa  was  this  time  hurt  for  her  friend  and 
spoke  up : 

"I  don't  see  why  you  say  that.  I  don't  think  a 
woman's  an  ass  who  can  support  herself  and  a  child 
as  she  does," — she  thought  of  her  sixteen  dollars  and 
added :  "It's  very  hard  for  a  woman  to  make  money." 

"Oh,  she's  not  an  ass  that  way,"  he  answered.  "She's 
an  ass  to  try  and  work  Shackleton  up  to  the  point  of 
becoming  a  patron  of  the  arts — as  represented  by  you." 

He  turned  on  her  with  a  slight  smile,  that  brought 
no  suggestion  of  amusement  to  his  somewhat  saturnine 
face. 

"Isn't  that  her  idea  ?"  he  asked. 

Mariposa  felt  her  hopes  as  to  the  training  of  her 
voice  becoming  mean  and  vulgar. 

"He  said  he  wanted  to  hear  me,"  she  said  stum- 
blingly,  "and  she  said  it  would  be  a  good  thing.  And 
I  have  no  money  to  educate  my  voice,  and  it's  all  I 
have.  Why  do  you  seem  to  disapprove  of  it  ?" 


98  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"I? — disapprove?  That  would  hardly  do.  Why 
even  if  I  wanted  to,  I  have  not  the  right  to,  have  I  ?" 

Mariposa's  face  flushed.  She  felt  now,  that  she  had 
presupposed  an  intimacy  between  them  which  he 
wanted  politely  to  suggest  did  not  exist.  This  was  not 
by  any  means  the  first  time  Essex  had  baffled  and  em 
barrassed  her.  It  amused  him  to  do  it,  but  to-day  he 
was  in  a  bad  temper  and  did  it  from  spleen. 

"Somehow  Jake  Shackleton  doesn't  suggest  himself 
to  me  as  a  patron  of  the  arts,"  he  said.  "I  don't  think 
he  knows  Yankee  Doodle  from  God  Save  the  Queen." 

Mariposa  thought  of  the  brilliant  article  on  the 
Italian  opera,  from  Bellini  to  Verdi,  that  the  man  be 
side  her  had  contributed  to  last  Sunday's  Trumpet, 
and  Jake  Shackleton's  enthusiastic  admiration  of  her 
singing  immediately  seemed  the  worthless  praise  of 
sodden  ignorance. 

"Then,"  she  said  desperately,  "you  wouldn't  attach 
any  importance,  if  you  were  I,  to  his  liking  my  sing 
ing?  It  was  just  the  way  some  people  like  a  street 
organ  simply  because  it  plays  tunes." 

"Oh,  I  wouldn't  think  that.  There's  no  reason  why 
he  shouldn't  know  a  good  voice  when  he  hears  it." 

"Do  you  think  I've  got  a  good  voice?"  said  Mari 
posa,  stopping  in  the  street  and  staring  morosely  at 
him. 

"Of  course  I  do,  dear  lady." 

"Do  you,  really  ?" 

"Yes,  really." 

She  smiled,  and  tried  to  hide  it  by  looking  down. 

It  was  hardly  in  man  to  continue  bad-humored  be- 


THE    MILLIONAIRE  99 

fore  this  naive  display  of  pleasure  at  his  commending 
word. 

"You  really  think  I  might  some  day  become  a  singer, 
a  professional  singer  ?" 

"I  really  do." 

The  smile  broadened  and  lit  her  face.  . 

"You  always  make  me  feel  so  stupid — and — and — 
as  if  I  didn't  amount  to  anything,"  she  murmured. 

It  was  so  sweet,  so  childishly  candid,  that  it  melted 
the  last  remnant  of  his  bad  temper. 

"You  little  goose,"  he  said  softly,  "don't  you  know 
I  think  more  of  you  than  I  do  of  any  one  in  San  Fran 
cisco?  It's  getting  dark;  take  my  arm  till  we  get  to 
the  car." 

She  did  so  and  they  moved  forward. 

"Or  anywhere  else,"  he  murmured. 


CHAPTER  III 

RETROSPECT 

"Your  young  men  shall  see  visions,  and  your  old  men  shall 
dream  dreams." — THE  ACTS. 

After  he  had  put  Mariposa  on  her  car,  Essex  went 
down  town  to  the  paper  with  some  copy.  He  was 
making  a  fair  living  on  The  Trumpet,  and  the  work  he 
was  doing  suited  him.  He  thought  it  might  last  the 
winter  and  he  had  no  objections  to  passing  the  winter 
in  San  Francisco.  Like  many  of  his  kind,  he  felt  the 
lazy  Bohemian  charm  of  the  diverse,  many-colored, 
cosmopolitan  city  sprawled  on  its  sand  dunes.  The  res 
taurants  alone  made  life  more  worth  while  than  any 
where  else  in  the  country  except  New  York. 

To-night  he  went  to  one,  for  dinner,  that  stood  in 
Clay  Street,  a  short  distance  below  Kearney.  He  had 
a  word  to  say  to  the  white-clothed  chef,  who  cooked 
the  dinner  in  plain  sight,  on  a  small  oven  and  grill,  be 
neath  which  the  charcoal  gleamed  redly.  He  stopped 
for  a  moment's  badinage  with  the  buxom,  fresh-faced 
French  woman  who  sat  at  the  desk.  She  was  the 
chef's  wife,  Madame  Bertrand,  and  liked  "Monsieur 
Esseex,"  who  spoke  her  natal  tongue  as  well  as  she 
did.  There  was  evidently  truth  in  one  piece  of  Essex's 
autobiography.  Only  a  childhood  spent  in  France  could 

100 


RETROSPECT  101 

teach  the  kind  of  French  he  spoke  with  Madame  Ber- 
trand. 

He  sat  long  over  his  dinner,  smoking  and  reading 
the  evening  papers.  It  was  so  late  when  he  left  that 
Bertrand  himself  came  out  of  his  cooking  corner  and 
talked  with  him  about  Paris.  "Monsieur  Esseex"  knew 
Paris  as  well  as  Bertrand,  some  parts  of  it  better.  He 
had  been  educated  there  at  one  of  the  large  lycees,  and 
had  gone  back  many  times,  living  now  on  one  side  of 
the  river,  now  on  the  other.  Bertrand,  in  his  white  cap 
and  apron,  conversing  with  his  guest,  retained  a  curi 
ous  manner  of  deference  unusual  in  California. 

"Monsieur  is  a  gentleman  of  some  kind  or  other,"  he 
told  madame. 

"There  are  many  different  kinds  of  gentlemen  in 
California,"  returned  that  lady,  oracularly. 

It  was  nearly  nine  when  Essex  left  the  restaurant, 
and  passing  down  Kearney  Street  for  a  few  blocks, 
turned  to  his  right  and  began  to  mount  the  ascending 
sidewalk  that  led  to  his  lodgings.  These  were  in  an 
humble  and  unfashionable  neighborhood  in  Bush 
Street.  The  house  was  of  a  kind  whence  gentility 
has  departed.  It  stood  back  on  the  top  of  two  small 
terraces,  up  which  mounted  two  wooden  flights  of 
stairs,  one  with  a  list  to  starboard  so  pronounced  that 
Essex  had,  once  or  twice,  while  ascending,  thought  the 
city  in  the  throes  of  an  earthquake. 

The  darkness  of  night  wrapped  it  now.  As  it  was 
early  a  light  within  shone  out  dimly  through  two  nar 
row  panes  of  glass  flanking  the  hall  door.  He  let  him- 
•  self  in  and  mounted  a  dirtily  carpeted  stairway.  The 
place  smelled  evilly  of  old  cooking  and  the  smoke  of 


102  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

many  and  various  cigarettes,  cigars  and  pipes.  It  was  a 
man's  rooming-house,  and  the  men  evidently  smoked 
where  and  what  they  listed.  Essex  had  no  idea  who 
they  were  and  had  seen  only  one  of  them :  a  man  on 
the  same  floor  with  him  who,  he  surmised,  by  the  oc 
casional  boisterousness  of  his  entrances,  frequently 
came  home  drunk. 

His  room  was  one  of  the  best  in  the  house,  on  the 
front,  and  with  a  large  bay  window  commanding  the 
street.  It  was  fairly  comfortable  and  well  furnished, 
and  the  draft  of  soft,  chill  air  that  crossed  it  from  the 
opened  window  kept  it  fresh.  Essex,  after  lighting 
the  gases  in  the  pendent  chandelier,  bent  and  kindled 
the  fire  laid  in  the  grate.  Like  many  foreigners  he 
found  San  Francisco  cold,  and  after  the  manner  of  his 
bringing  up  would  no  more  have  denied  himself  a  fire 
when  he  was  chilly,  than  a  glass  of  wine  when  he  was 
thirsty.  Different  nations  have  their  different  extrav 
agances,  and  Essex's  French  boyhood  had  stamped 
him  with  respect  for  the  little  comforts  of  that  intelli 
gent  race. 

He  pulled  up  an  easy  chair  and  sat  down  in  front  of 
the  small  blaze,  with  his  hands  out.  Its  warmth  was 
pleasant,  and  he  stayed  thus,  thinking.  Presently  he 
smiled  slightly,  his  ear  having  caught  the  sounds  of 
his  fellow  lodger's  stumbling  ascent  of  the  stairs.  The 
man  was  evidently  drunk  again,  and  he  wondered 
vaguely  how  he  ever  managed  to  mount  the  terrace 
steps  with  the  list  to  starboard. 

The  lodger's  door  opened,  shut,  and  there  was  si 
lence.  Essex — an  earnest  reader — was  soon  deep  in 
his  book.  From  this  he  was  interrupted  by  a  step  in 


RETROSPECT  103 

the  passage  and  a  light  knock  on  the  door.  In  response 
to  his  "Corne  in,"  the  door  opened  hesitantly,  and 
the  man  from  across  the  hall  thrust  in  his  head.  It  was 
a  head  of  wild  gray  hair,  with  an  old  yellow  face, 
seamed  and  shriveled  beneath  it.  The  eyes,  which  were 
beadily  dark  and  set  close  to  the  nose,  were  bloodshot, 
the  lips  slack  and  uncertain.  A  very  dirty  hand  was 
curled  round  the  edge  of  the  door. 

"Well,  what  is  it?"  said  Essex. 

"I've  lost  my  matches  agin,"  said  the  man,  in  a  whin- 
ingly  apologetic  tone. 

"There  are  some,"  said  Essex,  designating  his  box 
on  the  mantelpiece.  "Take  what  you  want." 

The  stranger  shambled  in,  and  after  scratching  about 
the  box  with  a  tremulous  hand,  secured  a  bunch.  Essex 
looked  at  him  with  cynical  interest.  He  was  miserably 
dressed,  dirty  and  ragged.  He  walked  with  an  apolo 
getic  slouch,  as  if  continually  expecting  a  kick  in  the 
rear.  He  was  evidently  very  drunk,  and  the  odor  of  the 
liquids  he  had  imbibed  compassed  him  in  an  ambulating 
reek. 

"Thanks  to  you,  Doc,"  he  said,  as  he  went  out.  "So 
long." 

A  few  minutes  later  Essex  heard  a  crash  from  his 
neighbor's  room,  and  then  exclamations  of  anger  and 
dole.  These  continuing  with  an  increased  volume,  Es 
sex  rose  and  went  to  the  source  of  sound.  The  room 
was  pitch  dark,  and  from  it,  as  from  the  entrance  to 
the  cave  of  the  damned,  imprecations  and  lamentations 
were  issuing  in  a  strenuous  flood.  With  the  match  he 
had  brought  he  lit  the  gas,  and  turning,  saw  his  late 
visitor  holding  by  the  foot-board  of  the  bed,  having 


104  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

overturned  a  small  stand,  which  had  evidently  been 
surmounted  by  a  nickel  clock. 

"What  the  devil  do  you  mean  by  making  such  a 
noise?"  he  said  angrily. 

"Pardon,  pardon!"  said  the  other  humbly,  "but  I 
couldn't  find  the  gas  this  time,  Doc.  This  is  a  small 
room,  but  things  do  get  away  somehow." 

He  looked  stupidly  about  with  his  bleared  eyes. 
The  room  was  small  and  miserably  dirty  and  unin 
viting. 

"There's  a  room,"  he  said  suddenly  in  a  loud,  dra 
matic  tone  and  with  a  sweep  of  his  arm,  "for  a  man 
who  might  er  been  a  bonanza  king !" 

Essex  turned  to  go. 

"If  you  make  any  more  of  this  row  to-night  I'll  see 
that  you're  turned  out  to-morrow,"  he  said  haughtily. 

He  wheeled  about  on  the  drunkard  as  he  spoke. 
The  man's  sodden  face  was  lit  with  a  flash  of  malevo 
lent  intelligence,  to  be  superseded  immediately  by  a 
wheedling  smile. 

"I  seen  you  before  to-day,"  he  said. 

"Well,  you'll  see  me  again  to-night  if  you  don't 
keep  quiet,  and  this  time  you  won't  like  it." 

"You  was  with  a  lady,  a  fine-looking  lady." 

"Here — no  more  of  that  talk,"  said  Essex  threaten 
ingly. 

The  man  stopped,  looking  furtively  at  him  as  if  half 
expecting  to  be  struck.  Essex  turned  toward  the 
door  and  passed  out.  As  he  did  so  he  heard  him  mut 
ter  :  "And  I'd  seen  her  before,  too." 

Back  in  his  room  the  young  man  took  up  his  book 
again,  but  the  thread  of  his  interest  was  broken.  His 


RETROSPECT  105 

mind  refused  to  return  to  the  prescribed  channels  be 
fore  it,  but  began  to  drift  here  and  there  on  the  way 
ward  currents  of  memory. 

The  house  was  now  perfectly  quiet.  The  little  fire 
had  fallen  together  into  a  pleasant  core  of  warmth 
that  genially  diffused  its  heat  through  the  room.  Es 
sex,  sprawling  in  his  chair,  his  long  arms  following 
its  arms,  his  finely-formed,  loose- jointed  hands  de 
pending  over  the  rounded  ends,  let  his  dreaming  gaze 
rest  on  this  red  heart  of  living  coal,  while  his  pipe 
smoke  lay  between  it  and  his  face  in  delicate  layers. 

His  thoughts  slipped  back  over  childish  memories 
to  his  first  ones,  when  he  had  lived  a  French  boy's  life 
with  his  mother  in  Paris. 

He  remembered  her  far  back  in  the  days  when  he 
sat  on  her  knee  and  was  read  to  out  of  fairy  books. 
She  had  been  very  pretty  then  and  very  happy,  and 
had  always  talked  English  with  him  while  every  one 
else  spoke  French.  She  had  been  an  Englishwoman, 
an  actress  of  beauty  and  promise,  who  in  the  zenith 
of  her  popularity  had  made  what  the  world  called  a 
fine  marriage  with  a  rich  Venezuelan,  who  lived  in 
Paris.  The  stories  of  Essex's  doubtful  paternity  were 
false.  Rose  Barry — Rose  Essex,  on  the  stage — had 
been  the  lawful  wife  of  Antonio  Perez,  and  for  ten 
years  was  the  happy  wife  as  well. 

They  were  very  prosperous  in  those  days.  Barry 
had  gone  to  the  lycee  all  week  and  come  back  every 
Friday  to  the  beautiful  apartment  in  the  Rue  de  Pon- 
thieu.  There  were  lovely  spring  Sundays  when  they 
drove  in  the  Bois  and  sometimes  got  out  of  the  car 
riage  and  walked  down  the  sun-flecked  allees  under 


106  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

the  budding  trees.  And  there  were  even  lovelier  win 
ter  Sundays  when  they  loitered  along  the  boulevards 
in  the  crisp,  clear  cold,  with  the  sky  showing  leaden 
gray  through  the  barring  of  black  boughs,  and  when 
they  came  home  to  a  parlor  lit  with  fire  and  lamplight 
and  had  oranges  and  hard  green  grapes  after  dinner. 

He  had  loved  his  pretty  mother  devotedly  in  those 
happy  days,  but  for  his  saturnine,  dark-visaged  father 
he  had  only  a  sentiment  of  uneasy  fear.  He  was 
twelve,  when  at  his  mother's  request  he  was  sent  to 
England  to  school.  He  could  remember,  looking  back 
afterward,  that  his  mother  had  not  been  so  pretty  or 
so  happy  then. 

When  he  came  home  from  school  for  vacations  she 
was  living  at  Versailles  in  a  little  house  that  presented 
a  secret,  non-committal  front  to  the  stony  street,  but 
that  in  the  back  had  a  delightful  garden  full  of  minia 
ture  fountains  and  summer-houses  and  grottoes. 
From  the  wall  he  could  see  the  mossy  trees  and 
stretches  of  sun-bathed  sward  of  the  Trianon.  His 
father  was  not  always  there  when  he  came.  One 
Easter  vacation  he  was  not  there  at  all,  and  when  he 
had  asked  his  mother  why,  she  had  burst  into  sudden, 
terrible  tears  that  frightened  him. 

During  the  long  summer  holidays  after  that  Antonio 
Perez  was  only  there  once  over  a  Sunday.  Then  he 
did  not  come  again,  and  Barry  was  glad,  for  he  had 
never  cared  for  his  father.  He  passed  delightful 
days  in  the  Trianon  Park  with  his  mother,  who  was 
very  silent  and  had  gray  hair  on  her  temples.  She 
walked  beside  him  with  a  slow  step,  dragging  her  rich 
lace  skirts  and  with  her  parasol  hanging  indolently 


RETROSPECT  107 

over  her  shoulder.  It  pleased  him  to  see  that  many 
people  looked  at  her,  but  she  took  no  notice  of  them. 

When  Barry  went  back  to  England  to  school  that 
year  he  began  to  feel  that  he  knew  what  was  coming. 
It  came  the  next  vacation.  His  mother  had  not  dared 
to  tell  him  by  letter.  Her  husband  had  deserted  her 
and  disappeared,  leaving  her  with  a  few  thousand 
francs  in  the  bank,  and  not  a  friend. 

After  that  there  were  three  miserable  years  when 
they  lived  in  a  little  apartment  on  the  Rue  de  Sevres, 
up  four  flights  of  stairs  with  a  bonne  a  tout  faire. 
His  mother  had  had  to  conquer  the  extravagant  habits 
of  a  lifetime,  and  she  did  it  ill.  During  the  last  year 
of  her  life  the  sale  of  her  jewels  kept  them.  Barry 
was  eighteen  when  she  died,  and  those  long  last  days 
when  she  lay  on  the  sofa  in  the  remnants  of  the  rich 
and  splendid  clothes  she  found  it  so  hard  to  do  without 
were  burned  into  his  memory  forever. 

Their  furniture — some  of  which  was  rare  and  hand 
some — brought  them  in  a  few  hundred  francs,  and  on 
this  he  lived  for  another  year,  eking  out  his  substance 
with  his  first  tentative  attempts  at  journalism.  When 
he  was  twenty-one  he  received  a  legal  notice  that  his 
father  had  died  in  Venezuela,  leaving  him  all  he  pos 
sessed,  which,  debts  paid  and  the  estate  settled, 
amounted  to  about  ten  thousand  dollars. 

This  might  have  been  a  fortune  to  the  youth,  but 
the  bitter  bread  he  had  eaten  had  soured  the  best  in 
him.  He  took  his  legacy  and  resolved  to  taste  of  the 
joy  of  life.  For  several  years  he  lived  on  the  crest 
of  the  wave,  now  and  then  diverting  himself  with  jour 
nalism,  the  only  profession  that  attracted  him  and  one 


io8  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

in  which  his  talents  were  readily  recognized.  He  saw 
much  of  the  world  and  its  ways,  living  in  many  cities 
and  among  many  peoples.  He  tried  to  cut  himself 
off  from  the  past,  adopting,  after  his  mother's  death, 
her  old  stage  name  of  Essex. 

Then,  his  money  spent,  there  had  been  a  dark  in 
terval  of  bad  luck  and  despondency,  when  Barry  Es 
sex,  the  brilliant  amateur  journalist,  had  fallen  out  of 
the  ranks  of  people  that  are  seen  and  talked  about. 
Without  means,  he  sank  to  the  level  of  a  battered  and 
out-at-elbows  Bohemian.  There  was  a  year  or  two 
when  he  swung  between  London  and  Paris,  making 
money  as  he  could  and  not  always  frequenting  credit 
able  company.  Then  the  tide  of  change  struck  him 
and  he  went  to  New  York,  worked  there  successfully 
till  once  again  the  Wanderlust  carried  him  farther 
afield. 

He  had  now  arrived  at  the  crucial  point  of  his  career. 
In  his  vagabond  past  there  were  many  episodes  best 
left  in  darkness,  but  nothing  that  stamped  him  as  an 
outcast  by  individual  selection.  Shady  things  were 
behind  him  in  that  dark,  morose  year  when  he  found 
disreputable  company  to  his  taste.  But  he  had  never 
stepped  quite  outside  the  pale.  There  had  always  been 
a  margin. 

Now  he  stood  on  that  margin.  He  was  thirty  years 
old  with  shame  and  bitterness  behind  him,  and  before 
him  the  dead  monotony  of  a  lifetime  of  work.  He 
hated  it  all.  No  memory  sustained  him.  The  past 
was  as  sore  to  dwell  on  as  the  future  was  sterile.  It 
was  the  parting  of  the  ways.  And  where  they  parted 
he  saw  Mariposa  standing  drawing  him  by  the  hand 


RETROSPECT  109 

one  way,  while  he  gently  but  persistently  drew  her  the 
other. 

In  his  softly  lit  library  in  his  great  house  at  Menlo 
Park  another  man  was  at  that  time  also  thinking  of 
Mariposa.  He  had  been  thinking  of  her  off  and  on 
ever  since  he  had  bidden  her  good  by  that  afternoon  at 
Mrs.  Willers'. 

As  the  train  had  whirled  him  over  the  parched, 
thirsty  country,  burnt  to  a  leathern  dryness  by  the 
summer's  drouth,  he  had  no  thought  for  anything  but 
his  newly  discovered  daughter.  His  glance  dwelt  un 
seeing  on  the  tanned  fields  with  their  belts  of  olive 
eucalyptus  woods,  and  the  turquoise  blue  of  the  bay 
beyond  the  painted  marsh.  Men  descending  at  way 
stations  raised  their  hats  to  him  as  they  mounted  into 
the  handsome  carriages  drawn  up  by  the  platform. 
His  return  to  their  salutes  was  a  preoccupied  nod. 
His  mind  was  full  of  his  child — his  splendid  daughter. 

Jake  Shackleton  had  not  forgotten  his  first  wife  and 
child,  as  Dan  Moreau  and  Lucy  had  always  hoped. 
He  was  a  man  of  many  and  secret  interests,  pulling 
many  wires,  following  many  trails.  He  knew  their 
movements  and  fortunes  from  the  period  of  their  mar 
riage  in  Hangtown.  At  first  this  secret  espionage  was 
due  to  fear  of  their  betraying  him.  He  had  begun  to 
prosper  shortly  after  his  entrance  into  the  state,  and 
with  prosperity  and  the  slackening  of  the  strain  of  the 
trip  across  the  desert  came  a  realization  of  what  he 
had  done.  He  saw  quickly  how  the  selling  of  his 
wife  would  appeal  to  the  California  mind  in  those 
days  fantastically  chivalrous  to  women.  He  would  be 
undone. 


I  io  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

With  stealthy  persistence  he  followed  the  steps  of 
the  peaceful  couple  who  had  it  in  their  power  to  ruin 
him.  Serenity  began  to  come  to  him  as  he  heard  that 
the  union  was  singularly  happy;  that  Moreau,  confi 
dent  no  one  would  molest  them,  had  gone  through  a 
ceremony  of  marriage  with  Lucy,  and  that  the  child 
was  being  brought  up  as  their  own. 

As  wealth  came  to  Shackleton  he  thought  of  them 
with  a  sort  of  jealous  triumph.  With  his  remarkable 
insight  into  men  he  knew  that  Dan  Moreau  would 
never  make  money ;  that  he  was  one  of  the  world's 
predestined  poor  men.  Then  as  riches  grew  and  grew, 
and  the  emigrant  of  the  fifties  became  the  bonanza 
king  of  the  seventies,  he  wondered  if  the  time  might 
not  come  when  they  would  turn  to  him. 

He  would  have  liked  it,  for  under  the  cold  indiffer 
ence  of  his  manner  the  transactipn  at  the  cabin  in  the 
Sierra  forever  haunted  him  with  its  savage  shameless- 
ness.  It  was  the  one  debasing  blot  on  a  career  which, 
hard,  selfish,  often  unprincipled,  had  yet  never,  before 
or  after,  sunk  to  the  level  of  that  base  action.  . 

When  Moreau  died  at  Santa  Barbara  Shackleton 
heard  it  with  a  sense  of  relief.  He  was  secretly  be 
coming  very  anxious  to  see  his  child.  Bessie  had 
borne  him  two  children,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  and  it  was 
partly  the  disappointment  in  these  that  made  him  de 
sirous  of  seeing  Mariposa.  He  knew  and  Bessie  knew 
that  she  was  his  only  legitimate  child.  Though  he  had 
virtually  entered  California  with  but  one  wife,  and  the 
blot  of  Mormonism  had  been  wiped  from  his  record 
before  he  had  been  two  days  in  the  state,  the  rumor 
that  he  had  once  been  a  Mormon  still  carelessly  passed 


RETROSPECT  in 

from  mouth  to  mouth.  Should  it  ever  become  known 
that  there  had  been  a  former  wife,  Bessie  and  her  chil 
dren  would  have  no  lawful  claim  on  him,  though  the 
children,  as  acknowledged  and  brought  up  by  him, 
would  inherit  part  of  his  estate. 

With  his  great  wealth  the  pride  that  was  one  of  the 
dominant  characteristics  of  his  hard  and  driving  na 
ture  grew  apace.  He  had  money  by  millions,  but  no 
one  to  do  it  credit.  It  would  have  been  the  crowning 
delight  of  his  tumultuous  career  to  have  a  beautiful 
daughter  or  talented  son  to  grace  the  luxury  that 
surrounded  him.  But  Bessie's  children  were  neither 
of  these  things.  They  were  dull  and  commonplace. 
Maud  was  fat  and  heavy  both  in  mind  and  body,  while 
Winslow  was,  to  his  father,  a  slow-witted,  character 
less  youth,  without  the  will,  energy  or  initiative  of 
either  of  his  parents.  Affection  not  grounded  on  ad 
miration  was  impossible  to  Shackleton,  who  sometimes 
in  his  exasperation, — for  the  successful  man  bore  dis 
appointment  ill, — would  say  to  himself : 

"But  they  are  not  my  real  children ;  I  have  only  one 
child — Dan  Moreau's  daughter." 

After  the  death  of  Moreau  he  learned  that  Lucy  and 
Mariposa  were  in  San  Francisco.  There  he  lost  trace 
of  them  and  was  forced  to  consult  a  private  detective 
who  had  done  work  for  him  before.  It  was  an  easy 
matter  to  find  them,  and  only  a  few  letters  passed  be 
tween  him  and  the  detective.  In  these  the  man  gave 
the  address  and  financial  condition  of  the  ladies  and 
added  that  the  daughter  was  said  to  be  "a  beautiful, 
estimable  and  accomplished  young  woman."  This 
fired  still  further  the  father's  desire  to  see  her.  He 


112  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

learned,  too,  of  their  crippled  means  and  it  pleased  him 
to  think  that  now  they  might  be  dependent  on  him. 
But  he  shrank  with  an  unspeakable  repugnance  from 
the  thought  of  seeing  Lucy  again,  and  he  was  for 
weeks  trying  to  find  some  way  of  meeting  Mariposa 
and  not  meeting  her  mother.  It  was  at  this  stage 
that,  purely  by  accident,  he  learned  that  Mrs.  Willers' 
daughter  was  one  of  Mariposa's  pupils.  A  day  or  two 
after  he  summoned  Mrs.  Willers  to  the  interview  that 
finally  brought  about  the  meeting. 

Satisfied  pride  was  still  seething  in  him  when  he 
alighted  from  the  train  and  entered  the  waiting  car 
riage.  This  magnificent  girl  was  worthy  of  him, 
worthy  of  the  millions  that  were  really  hers.  She  had 
everything  the  others  lacked — beauty,  charm,  talents. 
Her  whole  air,  that  regalness  of  aspect  which  some 
times  curiously  distinguishes  the  simple  women  of  the 
West,  appealed  passionately  to  his  ambition  and  love 
of  success.  She  was  born  to  conquer,  to  be  a  queen  of 
men.  The  image  of  Maud  rose  beside  her,  and  seemed 
clumsier  and  commoner  than  ever.  The  father  felt  a 
slight  movement  of  distaste  and  irritation  against  his 
second  daughter,  who  had  supplanted  in  his  home  and 
in  the  world's  regard  his  elder  and  fairer  child. 

The  carriage  turned  in  through  a  lofty  gate  and 
rolled  at  a  slackened  pace  up  a  long  winding  drive. 
Jacob  Shackleton's  Menlo  Park  estate  was  one  of  the 
showy  ones  of  that  gathering-place  of  rich  men's  man 
sions. 

The  road  wound  for  some  half  mile  through  a 
stretch  of  uncultivated  land,  dotted  with  the  forms  of 
huge  live-oaks.  The  grass  beneath  them  was  burnt 


RETROSPECT  113 

gray  and  was  brittle  and  slippery.  The  massive  trees, 
some  round  and  compact  and  so  densely  leaved  that 
they  were  as  impervious  to  rain  as  an  umbrella,  others 
throwing  out  long,  gnarled  arms  as  if  spellbound  in 
some  giant  throe  of  pain,  cast  vast  slanting  shadows 
upon  the  parched  ground.  Some  seemed,  like  trees 
in  Dore's  drawings,  to  be  endowed  with  a  grotesque, 
weird  humanness  of  aspect,  as  though  an  imprisoned 
dryad  or  gnome  were  struggling  to  escape,  causing  the 
mighty  trunk  to  bow  and  writhe,  and  sending  tremors 
of  life  along  each  convulsed  limb.  A  mellow  hoariness 
marked  them  all,  due  to  their  own  richly  subdued  color 
ing  and  the  long  garlands  of  silvery  moss  that  hung 
from  their  boughs  like  an  eldrich  growth  of  hair. 

A  sudden  greenness  in  the  sward  and  brilliant 
glimpses  of  flower-beds  pieced  in  between  dark  tree- 
trunks,  told  of  the  proximity  of  the  house.  It  was  a 
massive  structure,  architecturally  ugly,  but  gaining  a 
sort  of  majesty  from  its  own  ponderous  bulk  and  from 
the  splendor  of  lawns  and  trees  about  it.  The  last 
level  rays  of  the  sun  were  now  flooding  grass  and 
garden,  piercing  bosky  thickets  where  greens  melted 
into  greens,  and  sleeping  on  stretches  of  close-cropped 
emerald  turf.  From  among  the  smaller  trees  the  lord 
ly  blue  pines — that  with  the  oaks  were  once  the  only 
denizens  of  the  long  rich  valley — soared  up,  lonely  and 
somber.  Their  crests,  stirred  by  passing  airs,  emitted 
eolian  murmurings,  infinitely  mournful,  as  if  repining 
for  the  days  when  they  had  ruled  alone. 

At  the  bend  in  the  drive  where  the  road  turned  off 
to  the  stables  Shackleton  alighted  and  walked  over  the 
grass  toward  the  house.  The  curious  silence  that  is  so 


114  TOMORROWS   TANGLE 

marked  a  characteristic  of  the  California  landscape 
wrapped  the  place  and  made  it  seem  like  an  enchanted 
palace  held  in  a  spell  of  sleep.  Not  a  leaf  nor  pendent 
flower-bell  stirred.  In  this  hour  of  warmth  and  still 
ness  evanescent  breaths  of  fragrance  rose  from  the 
carpets  of  violets  that  were  beginning  to  bloom  about 
the  roots  of  the  live-oaks. 

As  he  reached  the  house  Maud  and  a  young  man 
came  round  the  corner  and  approached  him.  The  girl 
was  dressed  in  a  delicate  and  elaborate  gown  of  pale 
pink  frilled  with  much  lace,  and  with  the  glint  of  fall 
ing  ribbons  gleaming  here  and  there.  She  carried  a 
pink  parasol  over  her  shoulder,  and  against  the  back 
ground  of  variegated  greens  her  figure  looked  modish 
as  a  fashion-plate.  It  was  a  very  becoming  and  ele 
gant  costume,  and  one  in  which  most  young  girls 
would  have  looked  their  best. 

Maud,  who  was  not  pretty,  was  the  type  of  woman 
who  looks  least  well  in  handsome  habiliments.  Her 
irremediable  commonness  seemed  thrown  into  higher 
prominence  by  adornment.  The  softly-tinted  dress 
robbed  her  pale  skin  of  all  glow  and  made  her  lifeless 
brown  hair  look  duller.  She  had  a  round,  expression 
less  face,  prominent  pale  blue  eyes,  and  a  chin  that  re 
ceded  slightly.  She  was  not  so  plain  as  she  was  with 
out  vivacity,  interest,  or  sparkle  of  youth.  With  her 
matter-of-fact  manner,  heavy  figure,  and  large,  un- 
animated  face  she  might  have  been  forty  instead  of 
twenty-one. 

She  was  somewhat  laboriously  coquetting  with  her 
companion,  a  tall,  handsome  young  Southerner,  some 


RETROSPECT  115 

six  or  seven  years  her  senior,  whom  her  father  recog 
nized  as  one  of  his  superior  clerks  and  shrewdly  sus 
pected  of  matrimonial  designs.  At  sight  of  her  parent 
a  slight  change  passed  over  her  face.  She  smiled,  but 
not  so  spontaneously;  her  speech  faltered,  and  she 
said,  coming  awkwardly  forward : 

"Oh,  Popper!  you're  late  to-day;  were  you  de 
layed?" 

"Evidently,  considering  I'm  an  hour  later  than  usual. 
Howdy,  Latimer;  glad  to  see  you  down." 

He  stopped  and  looked  at  them  with  the  slightest 
inquiring  smile.  Though  he  said  nothing  to  indicate 
it,  both,  knowing  him  in  different  aspects,  felt  he  was 
not  pleased.  His  whole  personality  seemed  to  radiate 
a  cold  antagonism. 

"It's  good  you  got  down  anyhow,"  said  Maud  con 
strainedly  ;  "this  is  much  nicer  than  town,  isn't  it,  Mr. 
Latimer  ?" 

All  the  joy  had  been  taken  out  of  Latimer  by  his 
chief's  obvious  and  somewhat  terrifying  displeasure. 
Had  he  been  alone  with  Maud,  he  would  have  known 
well  how  to  respond  to  her  remark  with  Southern  fer 
vency  of  phrase.  But  now  he  only  said  with  stiff  po 
liteness  : 

"Oh,  this  is  quite  ideal !"  and  lapsed  into  uncom 
fortable  silence. 

"Was  it  some  one  interesting  that  made  you  late?" 
queried  Maud,  as  her  father  made  no  attempt  to  con 
tinue  the  conversation. 

"Very,"  he  responded ;  "handsome  and  interesting." 

"Won't  you  tell  us  about  them  ?"  the  girl  asked,  feel- 


ii6  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

ing  that  the  word  "handsome"  contained  a  covert  al 
lusion  to  her  own  lack  of  beauty  of  which  she  was  ex 
tremely  sensitive. 

"Not  now,  and  I  don't  think  it  would  interest  you 
much,  anyway.  Is  your  mother  indoors?" 

The  girl  nodded  and  he  turned  away  and  disappeared 
round  the  corner  of  the  house.  She  and  Latimer 
sauntered  on. 

"The  handsome  and  interesting  person  doesn't  seem 
to  have  made  your  paternal  any  fuller  than  usual  of 
the  milk  of  human  kindness,"  said  the  young  man, 
whose  suit  had  progressed  further  than  people  guessed. 

"Popper's  often  like  that,"  said  Maud  slowly, — and 
in  a  prettier  and  more  attractive  girl  the  tone  and 
manner  of  the  remark  would  have  been  charmingly 
plaintive, — "I  don't  know  what  makes  him  so." 

"He  can  be  more  like  a  patent  congealing  ice-box 
when  he  wants  to  be  than  anybody  I  ever  saw.  But  I 
don't  see  why  he  should  be  so  to  you." 

"I  don't,  either,  but  he  is  often.  He  never  says  any 
thing  exactly  disagreeable,  but  he  makes  me  feel  sort 
of — of — mean.  Sometimes  I  think  he  doesn't  like  me 
at  all." 

"Oh,  bosh!"  said  Latimer  gallantly;  "if  that's  the 
case  he's  ripe  for  a  commission  of  lunacy." 

Shackleton  meantime  had  entered  the  house  and 
ascended  to  his  dressing-room.  He  was  in  there  mak 
ing  the  small  change  which  marked  his  dinner  from 
his  business  toilet  when  his  wife  entered. 

The  years  had  turned  Bessie  into  a  buxom,  fine-look 
ing  matron,  fashionably  dressed,  but  inclined  to  be  very 
stout.  Her  eye  and  its  glance  were  sharp  and  keen- 


RETROSPECT  117 

edged,  still  alight  with  vigor  and  alertness.  It  was 
easy  to  see  why  Jake  Shackleton,  the  reader  of  charac 
ter,  had  set  aside  his  feeble  first  wife  for  this  dominat 
ing  and  forceful  partner.  He  had  been  faithful  to  her ; 
after  a  fashion  had  loved  her,  and  certainly  admired 
her,  for  she  had  the  characteristics  he  most  respected. 

In  his  success  she  had  been  the  same  assistance  that 
she  had  been  in  his  poverty.  She  had  climbed  the  so 
cial  heights  and  conquered  the  impregnable  position 
they  now  occupied.  Her  rich  dress,  her  handsome  ap 
pearance,  her  agreeably  modulated  voice,  all  were  in 
keeping  with  the  position  and  great  wealth  that  were 
theirs.  The  house  of  which  she  was  the  mistress  was 
admirably  ordered  and  sumptuously  furnished.  She 
had  only  disappointed  him  in  one  way — her  children. 

"What  made  you  late  ?"  she,  too,  asked ;  "several 
people  came  down  this  afternoon." 

"I  was  detained — a  girl  Mrs.  Willers  wanted  me  to 
see;  who's  here?" 

"Latimer,  and  Count  de  Lamolle,  and  George  Her- 
ron  and  the  Thurston  girls ;  and  the  Delanceys  are 
coming  over  to  dinner." 

He  nodded  at  the  names — Bessie  knew  well  how  to 
arrange  her .  parties.  The  Thurstons  were  two  im 
poverished  sisters  of  great  beauty  and  that  proud 
Southern  stock  of  which  early  California  thought  so 
highly  and  rewarded  in  most  cases  with  poverty. 
Count  de  Lamolle  was  a  distinguished  foreigner  that 
she  was  considering  for  Maud.  The  other  two  young 
men  filled  in  nicely.  The  Delanceys  were  a  brother 
and  sister,  claimants  of  the  great  Delancey  Grant, 
which  was  now  in  litigation.  It  had  come  into  their 


iiS  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

possession  by  the  marriage  of  their  grandmother, 
the  Senorita  Concepcion  de  Briones,  in  '36,  to  the 
Yankee  skipper,  Jeremiah  Delancey. 

"Who  was  the  girl  Mrs.  Willers  wanted  you  to  see  ?" 
Bessie  asked. 

"Oh,  I'll  tell  you  about  her  to-morrow.  It's  a  long 
story,  and  I  don't  want  to  be  hurried  over  it." 

He  had  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  tell  Bessie 
he  had  seen  and  intended  to  assist  his  eldest  child.  He 
had  always  been  frank  with  her  and  he  was  not  going 
to  dissemble  now.  He  knew  that  with  all  her  faults 
she  was  a  generous  woman. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A   GALA    NIGHT 

"He  looked  at  her  as  a  lover  can; 
She  looked  at  him  as  one  who  awakes." 

— BROWNING. 

From  his  first  meeting  with  her,  Barry  Essex  had 
conceived  a  deep  interest  in  Mariposa.  He  had  known 
women  of  many  and  divers  sorts,  and  loved  a  few 
after  the  manner  of  his  kind,  which  was  to  foster  in 
dolently  a  selfish  caprice.  Marriage  was  out  of  the 
question  for  him  unless  with  money,  and  some  instinct, 
perhaps  inherited  from  his  romantic  and  deeply-loving 
mother,  made  this  singularly  repugnant  to  his  nature, 
which  was  neither  sensitive  nor  scrupulous.  The  mys 
tery  and  hazard  of  life  appealed  passionately  to  him, 
and  to  exchange  this  for  the  dull  monotony  of  a  rich 
marriage  was  an  unbearably  irksome  thought  to  his 
unrestrained  and  adventurous  spirit. 

Mariposa's  charm  had  struck  him  deep.  He  had 
never  before  met  that  combination  of  extreme  sim 
plicity  of  character  with  the  unconscious  majesty  of 
appearance  which  marked  the  child  of  the  far  West. 
He  saw  her  in  that  Europe,  which  was  his  home,  as 
a  conquering  queen ;  and  he  thought  proudly  of 
himself  as  the  owner  of  such  a  woman.  Moreover 

119 


120  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

he  was  certain  that  her  voice,  properly  trained  and  di 
rected,  would  be  a  source  of  wealth.  She  seemed  to 
nim  the  real  vocal  artist,  stupid  in  all  but  one  great 
gift;  in  that,  preeminent. 

Mariposa  was  trembling  on  the  verge  of  a  first  love. 
She  had  never  seen  any  one  like  Essex  and  regarded 
him  as  the  most  distinguished  and  brilliant  of  beings. 
His  attentions  flattered  her  as  she  had  never  been  flat 
tered  before,  and  she  found  herself  constantly  wonder 
ing  what  he  saw  in  a  girl  who  must  appear  to  him  so 
raw. 

Her  experience  of  men  was  small.  Once  in  Sacra 
mento,  when  she  was  eighteen,  she  had  received  an 
offer  from  a  young  lawyer,  and  two  years  ago,  in  Santa 
Barbara,  she  had  been  the  recipient  of  a  second,  from 
a  prosperous  rancher.  Both  had  been  refused  without 
hesitation,  and  had  left  no  mark  on  imagination  or 
heart.  Then,  at  a  critical  period  of  her  life — lonely, 
poor,  a  stranger  in  a  strange  city — she  had  fallen  in 
with  Essex,  and  for  the  first  time  felt  the  thrill  at  the 
sound  of  a  footstep,  the  quickening  pulse  and  flushing 
cheek  at  the  touch  of  a  hand,  that  she  had  read  of  in 
novels.  She  thought  that  nobody  had  seen  this;  but 
the  eyes  of  the  dangerous  man  under  whose  spell  she 
had  fallen  were  watching  her  with  wary  yet  ardent 
interest. 

He  had  known  her  now  for  three  months  and  had 
seen  her  frequently.  His  visits  at  the  Pine  Street  cot 
tage  were  augmented  by  occasional  meetings  at  Mrs. 
Willers,  when  that  lady  was  at  home  and  receiving 
company,  and  by  walks  together.  Of  late,  too,  he  had 
asked  her  to  go  to  the  theater  with  him.  Lucy  was 


A   GALA   NIGHT  121 

always  included  in  these  invitations,  but  was  unable 
to  go.  The  theater  was  an  untarnished  delight  to 
Mariposa,  and  to  refuse  her  the  joy  of  an  evening 
spent  there  was  not  in  the  mother's  heart.  Moreover, 
Lucy,  in  her  agony  at  the  thought  of  leaving  the  girl 
alone  in  the  world,  watched  Essex  with  a  desperate 
anxiety  trying  to  fathom  his  feelings.  It  seemed  to 
the  unworldly  woman,  that  this  attractive  gentleman 
might  have  been  sent  by  fate  to  be  the  husband  who 
was  to  love  and  guard  the  child  when  the  mother  was 
gone. 

A  few  days  after  the  party  at  Mrs.  Willers'  rooms 
Essex  had  invited  Mariposa  to  go  with  him  to  a  per 
formance  of  "II  Trovatore,"  to  be  given  at  Wade's 
opera-house.  The  company,  managed  by  a  French 
man  called  Lepine,  was  one  of  those  small  foreign 
ones  that  in  those  days  toured  the  West  to  their  own 
profit  and  the  pleasure  of  their  audiences.  The  star 
was  advertised  as  a  French  diva  of  European  renown. 
Essex  had  heard  her  on  the  continent,  and  pronounced 
her  well  worth  hearing,  if  rather  too  fat  to  be  satisfy 
ing  to  the  esthetic  demands  of  the  part  of  Leonora. 
Grand  opera  was  still  something  of  a  rarity  in  San 
Francisco  and  it  promised  to  be  an  occasion.  The  pa 
pers  printed  the  names  of  those  who  had  bought  boxes. 
Mariposa  had  read  that  evening  that  Jacob  Shackleton 
would  occupy  the  left-hand  proscenium  box  with  his 
wife  and  family. 

"His  daughter,"  said  Mariposa,  standing  in  front 
of  the  glass  as  she  put  on  finishing  touches,  "is  ugly, 
Mrs.  Willers  says.  I  think  that's  the  way  it  ought  to 
be.  It  wouldn't  be  fair  to  be  an  heiress  and  handsome." 


122  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"It  wouldn't  be  fair  for  you  to  be  an  heiress,  cer 
tainly,"  commented  the  mother  from  her  armchair. 

"You  don't  think  I  abuse  the  privilege  a  penniless 
girl  has  of  being  good-looking?"  said  Mariposa,  turn 
ing  from  the  glass  with  a  twinkling  eye. 

She  looked  her  best  and  knew  it.  Relics  of  better 
days  lingered  in  the  bureau  drawers  and  jewel  boxes 
of  these  ladies  as  they  did  in  the  small  parlor.  That 
night  they  had  been  mustered  in  their  might  for  Mari- 
posa's  decking.  She  was  proud  in  the  consciousness 
that  the  dress  of  fine  black  lace  she  wore,  through  the 
meshes  of  which  her  statuesque  arms  and  neck  gleamed 
like  ivory,  was  made  from  a  shawl  that  in  its  day  had 
been  a  costly  possession.  Her  throat  was  bare,  the 
lace  leaving  it  free  and  closing  below  it.  Where  the 
black  edges  came  together  over  the  white  skin  a  small 
brooch  of  diamonds  was  fastened.  Below  the  rim  of 
her  hat,  her  hair  glowed  like  copper,  and  the  coloring 
of  her  lips  and  cheeks  was  deepened  by  excitement  into 
varying  shades  of  coral. 

As  they  entered  the  theater,  Essex  was  aware  that 
many  heads  were  turned  in  their  direction.  But  Mari 
posa  was  too  imbued  with  the  joyous  unusualness  of 
the  moment  to  notice  it.  She  had  forgotten  herself 
entirely,  and  sitting  a  little  forward,  her  lips  parted, 
surveyed  the  rustling  and  fast-filling  house. 

The  glow  of  the  days  of  Comstock  glory  was  still 
in  the  air.  San  Francisco  was  still  the  city  of  gold 
and  silver.  The  bonanza  kings  had  not  left  it,  but 
were  trying  to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  palaces 
they  were  rearing  with  their  loose  millions.  Society 
yet  retained  its  cosmopolitan  tone,  careless,  brilliant, 


A   GALA    NIGHT  123 

and  unconventional.  There  were  figures  in  it  that 
had  made  it  famous — men  who  began  life  with  a  pick 
and  shovel  and  ended  it  in  an  orgy  of  luxury; 
women,  whose  habits  of  early  poverty  dropped  from 
them  like  a  garment,  and  who,  carried  away  by  their 
power,  displayed  the  barbaric  caprices  of  Roman  em 
presses. 

The  sudden  possession  of  vast  wealth  had  intoxi 
cated  this  people,  lifting  them  from  the  level  of  the 
commonplace  into  a  saturnalia  of  extravagance.  Pov 
erty,  the  only  restraint  many  of  them  had  ever  felt, 
was  gone.  Money  had  made  them  lawless,  whimsical, 
bizarre.  It  had  developed  all-conquering  personali 
ties,  potent  individualities.  They  were  still  playing 
with  it,  wondering  at  it,  throwing  it  about. 

Essex  let  his  glance  roam  over  the  audience,  that 
filled  the  parquet,  and  the  three  horseshoes  above 
it.  It  struck  him  as  being  more  Latin  than  American. 
That  foreignness  which  has  always  clung  to  Cali 
fornia  was  curiously  pronounced  in  this  gathering  of 
varied  classes.  He  saw  many  faces  with  the  ebon  hair 
and  olive  skins  of  the  Spanish  Californians,  lovely 
women,  languid  and  fawn-eyed,  badly  dressed — for 
they  were  almost  all  poor  now,  who  once  were  lords 
of  the  soil. 

The  great  Southern  element  which,  in  its  day,  set 
the  tone  of  the  city  and  contributed  much  to  its  tradi 
tions  of  birth  and  breeding,  was  already  falling  into 
the  background.  Many  of  its  women  had  only  their 
beauty  left,  and  this  they  had  adorned,  as  Mariposa 
had  hers,  with  such  remnants  of  the  days  when 
Plancus  was  consul,  as  remained — bits  of  jewelry,  old 


124  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

and  unmodish  but  cumbrously  handsome,  edgings  of 
lace,  a  pale-colored  feather  in  an  old  hat,  a  crape  shawl 
worn  with  an  air,  a  string  of  beads  carried  bravely, 
though  beads  were  no  longer  in  the  mode. 

An  arrogant  air  of  triumph  marked  the  Irish  Cali- 
fornians.  With  the  opening  up  of  the  Comstock  they 
had  stuck  their  flag  on  the  summit  of  the  heights. 
They  had  always  found  California  kindly,  but  by  the 
discovery  of  that  mountain  of  silver  they  had  become 
kings  where  they  were  once  content  to  serve.  The 
Irish  face,  sometimes  in  its  primeval,  monkey-like  ug 
liness,  sometimes  showing  the  fresh  colored,  blowsy 
prettiness  of  the  colleens  by  their  native  bogs,  repeated 
itself  on  every  side.  Now  and  then  one  of  them  shone 
out  like  a  painting  by  Titian — the  Hibernian  of  the 
red-gold  hair  and  milk-white  skin,  refined  by  luxury 
and  delicate  surroundings  into  a  sumptuous  and  ar 
resting  beauty.  Many  showed  the  metal  that  had  car 
ried  their  fathers  on  to  victory.  Others  were  only 
sleek,  smooth-skinned  animals,  lazy,  sensuous,  and  sly. 
And  these  women,  whose  mothers  had  run  barefoot, 
were  dressed  with  the  careless  splendor  of  those  to 
whom  a  diamond  is  a  detail. 

Essex  raised  his  glass  from  the  perusal  of  the  sea 
of  faces,  to  the  box  which  the  Shackleton  party  had 
just  entered.  There  was  no  question  about  the  Amer 
icanism  of  this  group,  the  young  man  thought,  as  he 
stared  at  Jake  Shackleton.  Square-set  and  unadorned, 
in  the  evening  dress  which  Bessie  made  him  wear,  he 
sat  back  from  the  velvet  railing,  an  uncompromising 
figure  of  dynamic  force,  unbeautiful,  shrewd,  the  most 
puissant  presence  in  that  brilliant  assemblage. 


A   GALA   NIGHT  125 

The  two  ladies  in  the  front  of  the  box  were  Mrs. 
and  Miss  Shackleton.  The  former  was  floridly  hand 
some,  almost  aristocratic,  the  gazer  thought,  looking 
at  her  firmly-modeled,  composed  face  under  its  roll 
of  gray  hair.  The  daughter  was  very  like  her  father, 
but  ugly.  Even  in  the  costly  French  costume  she  wore, 
with  the  gleam  of  diamonds  in  her  hair,  about  her  neck, 
in  the  lace  on  her  bosom,  she  was  ugly.  Essex,  with 
that  thought  of  marrying  money  in  the  background 
of  his  mind,  scrutinized  her.  To  rectify  his  fortune  in 
such  a  way  became  more  repugnant  than  ever.  If 
Mariposa  had  only  been  Jake  Shackleton's  daughter 
instead ! 

He  turned  and  looked  at  her.  She  met  his  glance 
with  eyes  darkened  by  excitement. 

"There's  Mr.  Shackleton  in  the  box,"  she  said  eager 
ly,  in  a  half-whisper.  ''Did  you  see?" 

"Yes,  I've  been  looking,  and  that's  his  daughter, 
Maud  Shackleton,  in  the  white  with  diamonds." 

"Is  it?  Oh,  what  a  beautiful  dress!  and  quantities 
of  diamonds.  Almost  too  many;  they  twinkle  like 
water,  as  if  some  one  had  squeezed  a  sponge  over  her." 

"What  can  you  do  when  you're  a  bonanza  king's 
daughter  and  as  ugly  as  that  ?  You've  got  to  keep  up 
your  end  of  the  line  some  way.  She  evidently  thinks 
diamonds  are  the  best  way." 

Essex  took  the  glass  and  looked  at  the  bedecked 
heiress  again.  After  some  moments  he  put  it  down 
and  turned  to  Mariposa  with  a  quizzical  smile. 

"Do .  you  know  I'm  going  to  say  something  very 
funny,  but  look  at  her  well.  Does  she  look  like  any 
body  you  know  ?" 


126  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

The  girl  looked  and  shook  her  head : 

"Like  her  father  a  little,"  she  said,  "but  no  one  else 
I  can  think  of." 

"No,  not  her  father.  Some  one  you  know  inti 
mately  and  see  often — very  often,  if  you're  as  vain  as 
you  ought  to  be." 

"Who?"  she  demanded,  frowning  and  looking  puz 
zled  ;  "I  can't  think  whom  you  mean." 

"Yourself ;  she  looks  like  you." 

Mariposa  gave  a  quick  look  at  the  girl  and  then  at 
Essex.  For  the  moment  she  thought  he  was  mocking 
her,  but  with  her  second  look  at  the  box,  the  likeness 
suddenly  struck  her. 

"She  is,"  she  said  slowly,  reaching  for  the  glass ; 
"yes,"  putting  it  down,  "I  see  it — she  is.  How  funny ! 
and  fancy  your  telling  me  on  top  of  the  statement  that 
she  was  so  ugly!  I  don't  see  how  I  can  smile  again 
this  evening." 

She  smiled  with  the  words  on  her  lips,  the  charming 
smile  of  a  woman  who  knows  her  silliest  phrases  are 
delightful  to  one  man  at  least. 

"I'm  not  entirely  like  her?"  she  asked,  with  a  some 
what  anxious  air ;  "I  haven't  got  those  pale-gray,  prom 
inent  eyes,  have  I  ?" 

"No,  you've  got  mysterious  dark  eyes,  as  deep  as 
wells,  and  when  I  look  into  them,  down,  down,  I  some 
times  wonder  if  I  can  see  your  heart  at  the  bottom. 
Can  I  ?  Let  me  see." 

He  leaned  forward  as  if  to  look  straight  into  her 
eyes.  Mariposa  suddenly  flushing  and  feeling  un 
comfortable,  dropped  them.  The  sensation  she  so  often 
experienced  with  Essex,  of  being  awkward  and  raw, 


A   GALA   NIGHT  127 

was  intensified  now  by  the  annoyed  embarrassment 
provoked  by  the  florid  gallantry  of  his  words.  But 
she  was  too  inexperienced  a  little  fly  to  deal  with  this 
cunning  spider,  and  tangled  herself  worse  in  the  web 
by  saying  nervously : 

"And  my  nose!  I  haven't  got  that  kind  of  nose? 
Oh,  surely  not,"  putting  up  a  gloved  hand  to  feel  of 
its  unsatisfactoriness. 

"You  have  the  dearest  little  nose  in  the  world, 
straight  as  a  Greek  statue's.  It's  a  little  bit  haughty, 
but  I  like  it  that  way.  And  your  mouth,"  he  dropped 
his  voice  slightly,  "your  mouth — " 

Mariposa  made  a  sudden  movement  of  annoyance. 
She  threw  up  her  head  and  looked  at  the  curtain  with 
frowning  brows. 

"Don't,"  she  said  sharply,  "I  don't  like  you  to  talk 
about  me  like  that." 

Essex  was  silent,  regarding  her  profile  with  a  de 
liberating  eye  and  a  slight,  amused  smile.  How  crude 
she  was  and  how  handsome !  After  a  moment's  silence, 
he  leaned  toward  her  and  said  in  a  voice  full  of  good- 
humored  banter : 

"Butterfly !  Butterfly !  Why  did  they  call  you  But 
terfly?" 

The  change  in  his  tone  and  manner  put  her  back  at 
once  on  the  old  footing  of  gay  bonhomie. 

"In  English,  that  way,  it  sounds  dreadful,  doesn't 
it  ?  Fancy  me  being  called  Butterfly !  I  was  called 
after  the  flower.  My  whole  name  is  Mariposa  Lily." 

"Mariposa  Lily!"  he  repeated  in  amused  amaze 
ment  ;  "what  an  absurd  name !" 

"Absurd!"  said  Mariposa  indignantly.    "I  don't  see 


128  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

anything  absurd  about  it.  I  think  it  very  pretty.  My 
mother  called  me  after  the  flower,  the  first  time  she 
saw  it.  They  couldn't  find  a  suitable  name  for  me  for 
a  long  time,  and  then  when  she  saw  the  flower  she 
decided  at  once  to  call  me  after  it.  It's  the  most  beau 
tiful  wild  flower  in  California." 

"It's  fortunate  you  were  not  called  Eschscholtzia," 
said  Essex,  who  thought  the  name  extremely  ridicu 
lous,  and  who  found  a  somewhat  mean  amusement  in 
teasing  the  girl ;  "you  might  just  as  well  have  been 
called  Eschscholtzia  Poppy." 

The  spirited  reply  which  was  on  Mariposa's  lips  was 
stopped  by  the  rising  of  the  curtain.  The  crowded, 
rustling  house  settled  itself  into  silence,  the  orches 
tra's  subdued  notes  rolled  out  with  the  voices  swelling 
above  them  into  the  listening  auditorium. 

The  rest  of  the  evening  was  an  enchante»l  dream  to 
her.  She  had  never  seen  an  opera,  and  for  the  first 
time  realized  what  it  might  mean  to  possess  a  voice. 
She  heard  the  house  thunder  its  applause  to  Leonora, 
and  thought  of  herself  as  singing  thus,  standing  alone 
on  that  dim  stage,  looking  out  over  the  sea  of  faces, 
all  listening,  all  staring,  all  spellbound,  hanging  on 
the  notes  that  fell,  sweet  and  rich,  thrilling  and  pas 
sionate,  from  her  lips.  Could  there  ever  be  such  a 
life  for  her?  Did  they  tell  the  truth  when  they  spoke 
so  admiringly  of  her  voice?  Could  she  ever  sing  like 
this  ?  A  surge  of  exultant  conviction  rose  in  her,  and 
sent  its  whisper  of  hope  and  ambition  to  her  throbbing 
brain. 

As  the  opera  progressed  she  grew  pale  and  motion 
less.  The  wild  thought  was  gaining  possession  of  her, 


A   GALA   NIGHT  129 

that  she,  Mariposa  Moreau,  with  her  four  pupils  and 
her  sixteen  dollars  a  month,  could  sing  as  well  as  this 
woman  of  European  renown,  for  whom  Essex,  the 
critical,  the  vastly  experienced,  had  words  of  praise. 
Once  or  twice  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  the  notes  were 
swelling  in  her  own  throat,  were  pressing  to  burst  out 
and  soar  up,  higher,  fuller,  richer  than  the  woman's 
on  the  stage.  Oh,  the  rapture  of  being  able  to  pour 
out  one's  voice,  to  give  wild,  melodious  expression  to 
love  or  despair,  while  a  thousand  people  hung  this 
way  on  one's  lips ! 

As  the  curtain  fell  for  the  third  time  she  turned 
to  Essex,  pale  and  large-eyed,  and  said  breathlessly : 

"I  could  sing  as  well  as  that  woman  if  I  had  more 
lessons ;  I  know  I  could !  I  know  it !" 


CHAPTER  V 

TRIAL   FLIGHTS 

"The  music  of  the  moon 
Sleeps  in  the  plain  eggs  of  the  nightingale." 

— TENNYSON. 

A  week  had  not  passed  since  the  night  at  the  opera 
when  Mariposa  received  a  hasty  letter  from  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers.  It  was  only  a  few  lines  scrawled  on  a  piece  of 
the  yellow  paper  affected  by  the  staff  of  The 
Trumpet,  and  advising  the  recipient  of  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Shackleton  requested  her  presence  at  his  office  at 
three  the  following  afternoon,  yet  a  suggestion  of 
triumph  breathed  from  its  every  word.  Mrs.  Willers 
was  clearly  elated  at  the  moment  of  its  production. 
She  hinted,  in  a  closing  sentence,  that  Mariposa's  star 
was  rising  rapidly.  She,  herself,  would  conduct  the 
girl  to  the  presence  of  the  great  man,  and  suggested 
that  Mariposa  meet  her  in  her  rooms  a  half-hour  be 
fore  the  time  set  for  the  interview. 

Mariposa  was  glad  to  do  this,  and  in  the  few  mo 
ments'  walk  across  town  toward  Third  Street,  to  hear 
what  Mrs.  Willers  thought  was  the  object  of  the  in 
terview.  The  girl's  cheeks  were  dyed  with  excited 
color  as  they  drew  near  The  Trumpet  office.  Mrs. 
Willers  was  certain  it  was  to  do  with  her  singing. 
Shackleton  had  almost  told  her  as  much.  He  had  been 

130 


TRIAL   FLIGHTS  131 

immensely  impressed  by  her  voice,  and  now,  with  the 
Lepine  Opera  Company  in  the  city,  Mrs.  Willers  fan 
cied  he  was  going  to  have  Lepine,  who  was  a  well- 
known  impresario  in  a  small  but  respectable  way,  pass 
judgment  on  it.  Mariposa's  foot  lagged  when  she 
heard  this.  It  was  such  a  portentous  step  from  the 
seclusion  of  a  rose-draped  cottage  in  Santa  Barbara, 
even  to  this  talk  of  singing  before  a  real  impresario. 
She  looked  down  the  vista  of  Third  Street  where  the 
faQade  of  The  Trumpet  office  loomed  large  from  hum 
bler  neighbors,  and  Mrs.  Willers  saw  hesitation  and 
fright  in  her  eyes.  Like  a  sensible  guardian  she 
slipped  her  hand  through  the  young  girl's  arm  and 
walked  her  briskly  forward,  talking  of  the  rare  chances 
life  offers  to  a  handicapped  humanity. 

The  Trumpet  office,  as  all  old  San  Franciscans  know, 
stood  on  Third  Street,  and  was,  in  its  day,  considered 
a  fine  building.  Jake  Shackleton  had  not  been  its 
owner  six  months  yet,  and  all  his  reforms  were  not 
inaugurated.  From  the  yawning  arch  of  its  doorway 
flights  of  stairs  led  up  and  upward,  from  stories 
where  the  presses  rattled  all  night,  to  the  editorial 
story  where  the  sentiments  of  The  Trumpet  staff  were 
confided  to  paper.  This  latter  and  most  important  de 
partment  was  four  flights  up  the  dark  stairway,  which 
was  lit  at  its  turnings  with  large  kerosene  lamps, 
backed  by  tin  reflectors.  There  was  little  of  the  lux 
ury  of  the  modern  newspaper  office  about  the  barren, 
business-like  building,  echoing  like  an  empty  shell  to 
the  shouts  of  men  and  the  pounding  of  machinery. 

At  the  top  of  the  fourth  flight  the  ladies  paused. 
The  landing  broadened  out  into  a  sort  of  anteroom, 


132  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

bare  and  windowless,  two  dejected-looking  gas-jets 
dispensing  a  tarnished  yellow  light  into  the  surround 
ing  gloom.  A  boy,  with  a  sleek,  oiled  head,  sat  at  a 
table  reading  that  morning's  issue  of  The  Trumpet. 
He  put  it  down  as  Mrs.  Willers  rose  before  his  vision 
and  nodded  familiarly  to  her.  She  gave  him  a  quick 
word  of  greeting  and  swept  Mariposa  forward 
through  a  doorway,  down  a  long  passage,  from  which 
doors  opened  into  tiny  rooms  with  desks  and  drop- 
lights.  The  girl  now  and  then  had  glimpses  of  men 
seated  at  the  desks,  the  radiance  of  the  droplights  hard 
on  their  faces  that  had  been  lifted  expectantly  as  their 
ears  caught  the  interesting  rustle  of  skirts  in  the  cor 
ridor. 

Suddenly,  at  the  end  of  the  passage,  Mrs.  Willers 
struck  with  her  knuckles  on  a  closed  portal.  The  next 
moment  Mariposa,  with  the  light  of  a  large  window 
shining  full  on  her  face,  was  shaking  hands  with 
Shackleton.  Then,  in  response  to  his  motioning  hand, 
she  took  the  chair  beside  the  desk,  where  she  sat,  fac 
ing  the  white  glare  of  the  window,  conscious  of  his 
keen  eyes  critically  regarding  her.  Mrs.  Willers  took 
a  chair  in  the  background.  For  a  moment  she  had 
fears  that  the  nervousness  she  had  noticed  in  her  pro 
tegee's  countenance  on  the  way  down  would  make  her 
commit  some  betise  that  would  antagonize  the  interest 
Shackleton  so  evidently  took  in  her.  Mrs.  Willers  had 
seen  her  chief's  brusk  impatience  roused  by  follies 
more  excusable  than  those  that  rise  from  a  young 
girl's  nervous  shyness  and  that  would  be  incomprehen 
sible  to  his  hardy,  self-confident  nature. 

But    Mariposa    seemed    encouragingly    composed. 


TRIAL   FLIGHTS  133 

She  again  felt  the  curious  sense  of  ease,  of  being  at 
home  with  him,  that  this  unknown  man  had  given 
her  before.  She  had  that  inspiring  sensation  that  she 
was  approved ;  that  this  old-time  friend  of  her  father's 
had  a  singular  unspoken  sympathy  with  her.  "As  if 
he  might  have  been  an  old  friend,"  she  told  her  mother 
after  the  first  meeting,  "or  some  kind  of  relation — one 
of  those  uncles  that  come  back  from  India  in  the 
English  novels." 

Now  only  her  fluctuating  color  told  of  the  inward 
tumult  that  possessed  her  as  he  told  her  concisely,  but 
kindly,  that  he  had  arranged  for  her  to  sing  before 
Lepine,  the  manager  of  the  opera,  at  two  o'clock  on 
the  following  day.  Several  people  of  experience  had 
told  him  Lepine  was  an  excellent  judge.  They  would 
then  hear  an  expert's  opinion  on  her  voice. 

"I  think  it's  the  finest  kind  of  voice,"  he  said,  smil 
ing,  "but  you  know  my  opinion's  worth  more  on  ores 
than  on  voices.  So  we  won't  soar  too  high  till  we  hear 
what  the  fellow  whose  business  it  is,  has  to  say.  Then, 
if  he's  satisfied" — he  gave  a  little  shrug — "we'll  see." 

The  interview  was  brought  to  an  end  in  a  few  mo 
ments.  It  seemed  to  Mariposa  that  the  scenes  which 
Mrs.  Willers  assured  her  were  so  big  with  promise 
were  incredibly  short  for  moments  so  fraught  with 
destiny.  She  seemed  hardly  to  have  caught  her 
breath  yet  from  the  ascent  of  the  four  flights  of  stairs, 
when  they  were  once  again  walking  down  the  corridor, 
with  the  writing  men  looking  up  with  pricked  ears 
at  the  returning  rustle  of  skirts.  It  was  Mrs.  Willers 
who  had  wafted  her  away  so  quickly. 

"Never  beat  about  the  bush  where  you  deal  with 


134  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

Jake  Shackleton,"  she  said,  slipping  her  hand  in  Mari- 
posa's  arm  as  they  passed  down  the  corridor.  "He's 
got  no  use  for  people  who  gambol  round  the  subject. 
Say  your  say  and  then  go.  That's  the  way  to  get  on 
with  him." 

In  the  anteroom  the  boy  was  still  sitting,  his  chair 
tilted  back  on  its  hind  legs,  The  Trumpet  in  his  hands. 
Nevertheless,  he  had  made  an  incursion  into  the  inner 
regions  to  find  out  whom  Mrs.  Willers  was  piloting 
into  the  sanctum,  for  he  had  the  curiosity  of  those  who 
hang  on  the  fringes  of  the  newspaper  world. 

As  the  ladies  passed  him,  going  toward  the  stair 
head,  a  young  man  rose  above  it,  almost  colliding  with 
them.  Then  in  the  gloom  of  the  dejected  gas-jets  he 
stood  aside,  against  the  wall,  letting  them  pass  out. 
He  wore  a  long  ulster  with  a  turned-up  collar.  Be 
tween  the  edge  of  this  and  the  brim  of  his  derby  hat, 
there  was  the  gleam  of  a  pair  of  eye-glasses  and  a 
suggestion  of  a  fair  mustache.  He  raised  his  hat, 
holding  it  above  his  head  during  the  interval  of  their 
transit,  disclosing  a  small  pate  clothed  with  smooth 
blond  hair. 

"Who  was  that  lady  with  Mrs.  Willers?"  he  said  to 
the  boy,  as  he  walked  toward  the  door  into  the  corridor. 

"She's  some  singing  lady,"  answered  that  youth 
drawlingly,  tilting  his  chair  still  farther  back,  "what's 
come  to  see  Mr.  Shackleton  about  singing  at  the  opera- 
house.  Her  name's  Moreau." 

The  young  man,  without  further  comment,  passed 
into  the  inner  hall,  leaving  the  boy  smiling  with  pride 
that  his  carelessly-acquired  information  should  have 


TRIAL   FLIGHTS  135 

been  so  soon  of  use.  For  the  questioner  was  Winslow 
Shackleton,  the  millionaire's  only  son. 

The  next  morning  was  one  of  feverish  excitement 
in  the  cottage  on  Pine  Street.  Mariposa  could  not  set 
tle  herself  to  anything,  at  one  moment  trying  her  voice 
at  the  piano,  at  the  next  standing  in  front  of  her  glass 
and  putting  on  all  her  own  and  her  mother's  hats  in 
an  effort  to  see  in  which  she  presented  the  most  at 
tractive  appearance.  She  thrilled  with  hope  for  a 
space,  then  sank  into  a  dead  apathy  of  dejection.  Lucy 
was  quietly  encouraging,  but  the  day  was  one  of  hid 
den  anguish  to  her.  The  daughter,  ignorant  of  the 
knowledge  and  the  memories  that  were  wringing  the 
mother's  heart,  wondered  why  Lucy  was  so  confident 
of  her  winning  Shackleton's  approval.  As  the  hour 
came  for  her  to  go  she  wondered,  too,  at  the  marble 
pallor  of  her  mother's  face,  at  the  coldness  of  the 
hand  that  clung  to  hers  in  a  lingering  farewell.  Lucy 
was  giving  back  her  child  to  the  father  who  had  de 
serted  it  and  her. 

The  excitement  of  the  morning  reached  its  climax 
when  a  carriage  appeared  at  the  curb  with  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers'  face  at  the  window.  The  hour  of  fate  had  struck, 
and  Mariposa,  with  a  last  kiss  to  her  mother,  ran  down 
the  steps  feeling  like  one  about  to  embark  on  a  jour 
ney  upon  perilous  seas  in  which*  lie  enchanted  islands. 

During  the  drive  Mrs.  Willers  talked  on  outside 
matters.  She  was  business-like  and  quiet  to-day. 
Even  her  clothes  seemed  to  partake  of  her  practical 
mood  and  were  inconspicuous  and  subdued.  As  the 
carriage  turned  down  Mission  Street  she  herself  be- 


136  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

gan  to  experience  qualms.  What  if  they  had  all  been 
mistaken  and  the  girl's  voice  was  nothing  out  of  the 
ordinary  ?  What  a  cruel  disappointment,  and  with  that 
sick,  helpless  mother !  What  she  said  was : 

"Now,  here  we  are!  Remember  that  you've  got 
the  finest  voice  Lepine's  ever  likely  to  hear,  and  you're 
going  to  sing  your  best." 

They  alighted,  and  as  they  turned  into  the  flagged 
entrance  that  led  to  the  foyer,  Shackleton  came  for 
ward  to  meet  them.  He  looked  older  in  the  crude  aft 
ernoon  light,  his  face  showing  the  lines  that  his 
fiercely-lived  life  had  plowed  in  it.  But  he  smiled 
reassuringly  at  Mariposa  and  pressed  her  hand. 

"Everything's  all  ready,"  he  said ;  "Lepine's  put  back 
a  rehearsal  for  us,  so  we  mustn't  keep  him  waiting. 
And  are  you  all  ready  to  surprise  us?"  he  asked,  as 
they  walked  together  toward  where  the  three  steps  led 
to  the  foyer. 

"I'm  ready  to  do  my  best,"  she  answered ;  "a  person 
can't  do  more  than  that." 

The  answer  pleased  him,  as  everything  she  said  did. 
He  saw  she  was  nervous,  but  that  she  was  going  to 
conquer  herself. 

"Lots  of  grit,"  he  said  to  himself  as  he  gave  ear  to 
a  remark  of  Mrs.  Willers'.  "She  won't  quit  at  the  first 
obstacle."  • 

They  passed  through  the  opening  in  the  brass  rail 
that  led  to  the  foyer.  This  space,  the  gathering  place 
of  the  radiant  beings  of  Mariposa's  first  night  at  the 
opera,  was  now  a  dimly-lit  and  deserted  hall,  its  flagged 
flooring  looking  dirty  in  the  raw  light.  From  some 
where,  in  what  seemed  a  far,  dreamy  distance,  the 


TRIAL   FLIGHTS  137 

sound  of  a  piano  came,  as  if  muffled  by  numerous 
doors.  As  they  crossed  the  foyer  toward  the  entrance 
into  the  auditorium,  the  door  swung  open  and  two 
men  appeared. 

One  was  a  short  and  stout  Frenchman,  with  a 
turned-over  collar,  upon  which  a  double  chin  rested. 
He  had  a  bald  forehead  and  eyes  that  gleamed  sharply 
from  behind  a  pince-nez.  At  sight  of  the  trio,  he  gave 
an  exclamation  and  came  forward. 

"Our  young  lady  ?"  he  said  to  Mariposa,  giving  her 
a  quick  look  of  scrutiny  that  seemed  to  take  her  in 
from  foot  to  forehead.  Then  he  greeted  Shackleton 
with  slightly  exaggerated  foreign  effusion.  He  spoke 
English  perfectly,  but  with  the  inevitable  accent.  This 
was  Lepine,  the  impresario,  and  the  other  man,  an 
Italian  who  spoke  little  English,  was  presented  as  Sig- 
nor  Tojetti,  the  conductor. 

They  moved  forward  talking,  and  then,  pushing  the 
door  open,  Lepine  motioned  Mariposa  to  enter.  She 
did  so  and  for  a  moment  stood  amazed,  staring  into 
a  vast,  shadowy  space,  where,  in  what  seemed  a  vague, 
undefined  distance,  a  tiny  spot  or  two  of  light  cut  into 
the  darkness.  The  air  was  chill  and  smelt  of  a  stable. 
From  somewhere  she  heard  the  sound  of  voices  rising 
and  falling,  and  then  again  the  notes  of  a  piano,  now 
near  and  unobscured,  carelessly  touched  and  resem 
bling,  in  the  echoing  hollow  spaciousness  of  the  great 
building,  the  thin,  tinkling  sounds  emitted  by  smitten 
glass. 

Lepine  brushed  past  her  and  led  the  way  down  the 
aisle.  As  she  followed  him  her  eyes  became  accus 
tomed  to  the  dimness,  and  she  began  to  make  out  the 


138  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

arch  of  the  stage  with  blackness  beyond,  into  which 
cut  the  circles  of  light  of  a  few  gas-jets.  The  lines 
of  seats  stretched  before  her  spectral  in  linen  covers. 
Now  and  then  a  figure  crossed  the  stage,  and  as  they 
drew  nearer,  she  saw  on  one  side  of  it  a  man  sitting 
on  a  high  stool  reading  a  paper  book  by  the  light  of  a 
shaded  lamp.  The  notes  of  the  piano  sounded  sharper 
and  closer,  and  by  their  proximity  more  than  by  her 
sight,  she  located  it  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  orchestra. 
As  they  approached,  the  sound  of  two  voices  came 
from  this  corner,  then  suddenly  a  man's  smothered 
laugh. 

"Mr.  Martinez,"  said  Lepine,  directing  his  voice 
toward  the  darkness  whence  the  laugh  had  risen,  "the 
lady  is  here  to  sing,  if  you  are  ready." 

Instantly  a  faintly  luminous  spark,  Mariposa  had 
noticed,  bloomed  into  the  full-blown  radiance  of  a  gas- 
jet  turned  full  cock  under  a  sheltering  shade.  It  pro 
jected,  what  seemed  in  the  dimness,  a  torrent  of  light 
on  the  keyboard  of  the  piano,  illuminating  a  pair  of 
long  masculine  hands  that  had  been  moving  over  the 
keys  in  the  darkness.  Behind  them  the  girl  saw  a 
shadowy  shape,  and  then  a  spectacled  face  under  a 
mane  of  drooping  black  hair  was  advanced  into  the 
light. 

"Has  the  lady  her  music  ?"  said  the  face,  in  English, 
but  with  another  variety  of  accent. 

She  handed  him  the  two  songs  she  had  brought, 
"Knowest  thou  the  Land,"  from  Mignon,  and  "Fare 
well,  Lochaber."  In  the  short  period  of  her  tuition 
her  teacher  had  told  her  that  she  had  sung  "Loch- 


TRIAL   FLIGHTS  139 

aber"  admirably.  The  man  opened  them,  glanced  at 
the  names,  and  placing-  the  "Mignon"  aria  on  the  rack, 
ran  his  hands  lightly  and  carelessly  over  the  keys  in  the 
opening  bars  of  the  accompaniment. 

"Whenever  the  lady  is  ready,"  he  said,  with  an  air 
of  patience,  as  though  he  had  endured  this  form  of 
persecution  until  all  spirit  of  revolt  was  crushed. 

Mariposa  drew  back  from  him,  wondering  if  she 
were  to  sing  there  and  then.  Lepine  was  behind  her, 
,  and  behind  him  she  saw,  with  a  sense  of  nostalgic 
loneliness,  that  the  Italian  conductor  was  shepherding 
Mrs.  Willers  and  Shackleton  into  two  seats  on  the 
aisle.  They  looked  small  and  far  away. 

"We  will  mount  to  the  stage  this  way,  Made 
moiselle,"  said  Lepine,  and  he  indicated  a  small  flight 
of  steps  that  rose  from  the  corner  of  the  orchestra  to 
the  lip  of  the  stage  above. 

He  ascended  first,  she  close  at  his  heels,  and  in  a 
moment  found  herself  on  the  dark,  deserted  stage.  It 
seemed  enormous  to  her,  stretching  back  into  unseen 
regions  where  the  half-defined  shapes  of  trees  and 
castles,  walls  and  benches  were  huddled  in  dim  con 
fusion.  Down  the  aisles  between  side-scenes  she 
caught  glimpses  of  vistas  lit  by  wavering  gleams  of 
light.  People  moved  here  and  there,  across  these 
vistas,  their  footsteps  sounding  singularly  distinct.  As 
she  stood  uneasily,  looking  to  the  right  and  left,  a  sud 
den  sound  of  hammering  arose  from  somewhere  be 
hind,  loud  and  vibrant.  Lepine,  who  was  about  to 
descend  the  stairs,  turned  and  shouted  a  furious  sen 
tence  in  Italian  down  the  opening.  The  hammering 


I4o  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

instantly  ceased,  and  a  man  in  white  overalls  came  and 
stared  at  the  stage.  The  impresario,  charily — being 
short  and  fat — descended  the  stairs. 

"Now,  Mademoiselle,"  he  said,  speaking  from  the 
orchestra,  "if  you  are  ready,  come  forward  a  little, 
nearer  the  footlights  there." 

Mariposa  moved  forward.  Her  heart  was  beating 
in  her  throat,  and  she  felt  a  sick  terror  at  the  thought 
of  what  her  voice  would  be  like  in  that  huge  void 
space.  She  was  aware  that  the  man  who  had  been 
reading  the  paper  book  had  closed  it  and  was  leaning 
his  elbow  on  the  lamp-stand,  watching  her.  She  was 
also  aware  that  a  woman  and  a  man  had  suddenly  ap 
peared  in  the  lower  proscenium  box  close  beside  her. 
She  saw  the  woman  dimly,  a  fat,  short  figure  in  a 
light-colored  ulster.  Whispering  to  the  man,  she  drew 
one  of  the  linen-covered  chairs  close  to  the  railing  and 
seated  herself. 

"Is  the  lady  ready?"  said  the  pianist,  from  his  dark 
corner. 

"Quite  ready,"  replied  Mariposa,  hearing  her  voice 
like  a  tremulous  thread  of  sound  in  the  stillness. 

The  first  bars  of  the  accompaniment  sounded  thinly. 
Mariposa  stepped  forward.  She  could  see  in  the 
shadowy  emptiness  of  the  auditorium  Lepine's  bald 
head  where  he  sat  alone,  half  way  up  the  house,  and  the 
two  pale  faces  of  Shackleton  and  Mrs.  Wilier s.  The 
Italian  conductor  had  left  them  and  was  sitting  by 
himself  at  one  side  of  the  parquet.  In  the  stillness, 
the  notes  of  the  piano  were  curiously  tinkling  and 
feeble. 

Mariposa  raised  her  chest  with  a  deep  inspiration. 


TRIAL   FLIGHTS  141 

A  sudden  excited  expectation  seized  her  at  the  thought 
of  letting  her  voice  swell  out  into  the  hushed  void  be 
fore  her.  The  listening  people  seemed  so  small  and 
insignificant  in  it,  they  suddenly  lost  their  terror.  She 
began  to  sing. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  her  first  notes  were  hardly 
audible.  They  seemed  as  ineffectual  as  the  piano. 
Then  her  confidence  grew,  and  delight  with  it.  She 
never  before  had  felt  as  if  she  had  enough  room. 
Her  voice  rolled  itself  out  like  a  breaking  wave,  lap 
ping  the  walls  of  the  building. 

The  first  verse  came  to  an  end.  The  accompaniment 
ceased.  Lepine  moved  in  his  distant  seat. 

"Continue,  Mademoiselle,"  he  said  sharply;  "the 
second  verse,  if  you  please.  Again,  Mr.  Martinez." 

Mariposa  saw  the  woman  in  the  box  look  at  the  man 
beside  her,  raise  her  eyebrows,  and  nod. 

She  began  the  second  verse  and  sang  it  through. 
As  its  last  notes  died  out  there  was  silence  for  a  mo 
ment.  In  the  silence  the  Italian  conductor  rose  and 
came  forward  to  where  Lepine  sat.  Mariposa,  stand 
ing  on  the  stage,  saw  them  conferring  for  a  space.  The 
Italian  talked  in  a  low  voice,  with  much  gesticulation. 
Shackleton  and  Mrs.  Willers  were  motionless  and 
dumb.  The  woman  in  the  box  began  to  whisper  with 
the  man. 

"And  now  the  second  piece,  if  Mademoiselle  has  no 
objection,"  came  the  voice  of  the  impresario  across  the 
parquet.  "One  can  not  judge  well  from  one  song." 

The  second  song,  "Lochaber,"  had  been  chosen  by 
Mariposa's  teacher  to  show  off  her  lower  register — 
those  curious,  disturbing  notes  that  were  so  deep  and 


142  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

full  of  vague  melancholy.  She  had  gained  such  con 
trol  as  she  had  over  her  voice  and  sang  with  an  almost 
joyous  exultation.  She  had  never  realized  what  it 
was  to  sing  before  people  who  knew  and  who  listened 
in  this  way  in  a  place  that  was  large  enough. 

When  the  last  notes  died  away,  the  tinkling  of  the 
piano  sounding  like  the  frail  specters  of  music  after 
the  tones  of  the  rich,  vibrant  voice,  there  was  a  sudden 
noise  of  clapping  hands.  It  came  from  the  box  on  the 
right,  where  the  woman  in  the  ulster  was  leaning  over 
the  rail,  clapping  with  her  bare  hands  held  far  out. 

"Brava!"  she  cried  in  a  loud,  full  voice.  "Brava! 
La  belle  voix!  Et  quel  volume!  Brava!" 

She  bounced  round  on  her  chair  to  look  at  the  man 
beside  her,  and,  leaning  forward,  clapped  again,  crying 
her  gay  "brava." 

Mariposa  walked  toward  the  box,  feeling  suddenly 
shy.  As  she  drew  nearer  she  saw  the  woman's  face 
more  distinctly.  It  was  a  dark  French  face,  with  a 
brunette  skin  warming  to  brick-dust  red  on  the  cheeks, 
set  in  a  frame  of  wiry  black  hair,  and  with  a  big  mouth 
that,  laughing,  showed  strong  white  teeth,  well  sepa 
rated.  As  Mariposa  saw  it  fairly  in  the  light  of  an 
adjacent  lamp  she  recognized  it  as  that  of  the  Leonora 
of  "II  Trovatore."  It  was  the  prima  donna. 

She  started  forward  with  flushing  cheek  and  held  out 
a  hesitating  hand.  The  fat,  ungloved  palms  of  the 
singer  closed  on  it  with  Gaelic  effusion.  Mariposa  was 
aware  of  something  delightfully  wholesome  and  kind 
in  the  broad,  ruddy  visage,  with  its  big,  smiling  mouth 
and  the  firm  teeth  like  the  halves  of  cleanly-broken 
hazelnuts.  The  singer,  leaning  over  the  fail,  poured 


TRIAL   FLIGHTS  143 

a  rumbling  volume  of  French  into  the  girl's  blushing, 
upturned  face.  Mariposa  understood  it  and  was  try 
ing  to  answer  in  her  halting  schoolgirl  phrases,  when 
the  voice  of  Mrs.  Willers,  at  the  bottom  of  the  steps, 
summoned  her. 

"Come  down,  quick!  They  think  it's  fine.  Oh, 
dearie,"  stretching  up  a  helping  hand  as  Mariposa 
swept  her  skirts  over  the  line  of  the  footlights,  "you 
did  fine.  It  was  great.  You've  just  outdone  your 
self.  And  you  looked  stunning,  too.  I  only  wished 
the  place  had  been  full.  Heavens !  but  I  thought  I'd 
die  at  first.  While  you  were  standing  there  waiting 
to  begin  I  felt  seasick.  It  was  an  awful  moment.  And 
you  looked  just  as  cool!  Mr.  Shackleton  don't  say 
much,  but  I  know  he's  tickled  to  death." 

They  walked  up  the  aisle  as  she  talked  to  where 
Shackleton  and  the  two  men  were  standing  in  earnest 
conversation.  As  they  approached  Lepine  turned  to 
ward  her  and  gave  a  slight  smile. 

"We  were  saying,  Mademoiselle,"  he  said,  "that  you 
have  unquestionably  a  voice.  The  lower  register  is 
remarkably  fine.  Of  course,  it  is  very  untrained;  ab 
solutely  in  the  rough.  But  Signer  Tojetti,  here,  finds 
that  a  strong  point  in  your  favor." 

"Signer  Tojetti,"  said  Shackleton,  "seems  to  think 
that  two  years  of  study  would  be  ample  to  fit  you  for 
the  operatic  stage." 

Mariposa  looked  from  one  to  the  other  with  beam 
ing  eyes,  hardly  able  to  believe  it  all. 

"You  really  did  like  it,  then?"  she  said  to  Lepine 
with  her  most  ingenuous  air. 


144  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  with  a  queer  French 
expression  of  quizzical  amusement. 

"It  was  a  truly  interesting  performance,  and  after  a 
period  of  study  with  a  good  master  it  should  be  a  truly 
delightful  one." 

The  Italian,  to  whom  these  sentences  were  only  half 
intelligible,  now  broke  in  with  a  quick  series  of  sono 
rous  phrases,  directed  to  Lepine,  but  now  and  then 
turned  upon  Shackleton.  Mariposa's  eyes  went  from 
one  to  the  other  in  an  effort  to  understand.  The  im 
presario,  listening  with  frowning  intentness,  respond 
ed  with  a  nod  and  a  word  of  brusk  acquiescence. 
Turning  to  Shackleton,  he  said: 

"Tojetti  also  thinks  that  the  appearance  of  Made 
moiselle  is  much  in  her  favor.  She  has  an  admirable 
stage  presence" — he  looked  at  Mariposa  as  if  she  were 
a  piece  of  furniture  he  was  appraising.  "Her  height 
alone  is  of  inestimable  value.  She  would  have  at 
least  five  feet  eight  or  nine  inches." 

At  this  moment  the  lady  in  the  box,  who  had  risen 
to  her  feet,  and  was  leaning  against  the  railing,  called 
suddenly : 

"Lepine,  vraiment  une  belle  voix,  et  aussi  une  belle 
fille!  Vous  avez  fait  une  trouvaille." 

Lepine  wheeled  round  to  his  star,  who  in  the 
shadowy  light  stood,  a  pale-colored,  burly  figure,  but 
toning  her  ulster  over  her  redundant  chest. 

"A  moment,"  he  said,  apologetically  to  the  others, 
and,  running  to  the  box,  stood  with  his  head  back, 
talking  to  her,  while  the  prima  donna  leaned  over  and 
a  rapid  interchange  of  French  sentences  passed  be 
tween  them. 


TRIAL   FLIGHTS  145 

Signer  Tojetti  turned  to  Mariposa,  and,  with  solemn 
effort,  produced  an  English  phrase : 

"Eet  ees  time  to  went."  Then  he  waved  his  hand 
toward  the  stage.  The  sound  of  feet  echoed  there 
from,  and  as  Mariposa  looked,  an  irruption  of  vague, 
spectral  shapes  rose  from  some  unseen  cavernous  en 
trance  and  peopled  the  orchestra. 

"It's  the  rehearsal,"  she  said.     "We  must  be  going." 

They  moved  forward  toward  the  entrance,  the  audi 
torium  behind  them  beginning  to  resound  with  the 
noise  of  the  incoming  performers.  A  scraping  of 
strings  came  from  the  darkened  orchestra,  and  mingled 
with  the  tentative  chords  struck  from  the  piano.  At 
the  door  Lepine  joined  them,  falling  into  step  beside 
Shackleton  and  conversing  with  him  in  low  tones. 
Signer  Tojetti  escorted  them  to  the  brass  rail  and  there 
withdrew  with  low  bows.  The  ladies  made  out  that 
the  rehearsal  demanded  his  presence. 

Once  again  in  the  gray  light  of  the  afternoon  they 
stood  for  a  moment  at  the  curb  waiting  for  the  car 
riage. 

Lepine  offered  his  farewells  to  Mariposa  and  his 
wishes  to  see  her  again. 

"In  Paris,"  he  said,  giving  his  little  quizzical  smile — 
"that  is  the  place  in  which  I  should  like  to  see  Made 
moiselle." 

"We'll  talk  about  that  again,"  said  Shackleton ;  "I'm 
going  to  see  Mr.  Lepine  before  he  goes  and  have  an 
other  talk  about  you.  You  see,  you're  becoming  a 
very  important  young  lady." 

The  carriage  rolled  up  and  Mariposa  was  assisted 


146  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

in,  several  street  boys  watching  her  with  wide-eyed  in 
terest  as  evidently  a  personage  of  distinction. 

Her  face  at  the  window  smiled  a  radiant  farewell 
at  the  group  on  the  sidewalk ;  then  she  sank  back 
breathless.  What  an  afternoon !  Would  the  carriage 
ever  get  her  home,  that  she  might  pour  it  all  out  to  her 
mother!  What  a  thrilling,  wonderful,  unheard-of 
afternoon ! 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  VISION   AND  THE  DREAM 
"For  a  dream  cometh  through  the  multitude  of  business." 

— ECCLESIASTES. 

As  the  carriage  turned  the  corner  into  Third  Street, 
Shackleton  and  Mrs.  Willers,  bidding  their  adieux  to 
Lepine,  started  toward  The  Trumpet  office.  The 
building  was  not  ten  minutes'  walk  away,  and  both  the 
proprietor  and  the  woman  reporter  had  work  there 
that  called  them. 

In  their  different  ways  each  was  exceedingly  elated. 
The  man,  with  his  hard,  bearded  face,  the  upper  half 
shaded  by  the  brim  of  his  soft  felt  hat,  gave  no  evidence 
in  appearance  or  manner  of  the  exultation  that  pos 
sessed  him.  But  the  woman,  with  her  more  febrile 
and  less  self-contained  nature,  showed  her  excited 
gratification  in  her  reddened  cheeks  and  the  sparkling 
animation  of  her  tired  eyes.  Her  state  of  joyous 
triumph  was  witnessed  even  in  her  walk,  in  the  way 
she  swished  her  skirts  over  the  pavements,  in  the  some 
thing  youthful  and  buoyant  that  had  crept  into  the 
tones  of  her  voice. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "that  was  an  experience  worth 
having!  I  never  heard  her  sing  so  before.  She  just 
outdid  herself." 

147 


148  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"She  certainly  seemed  to  me  to  sing  well.  I  was 
doubtful  at  the  beginning,  not  knowing  any  more  about 
singing  than  I  do  about  Sanskrit,  as  to  whether  she 
really  had  as  fine  a  voice  as  we  thought.  But  there 
don't  seem  to  me  to  be  any  doubt  about  it  now." 

"Lepine  is  quite  certain,  is  he?"  queried  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers,  who  had  tried  to  listen  to  the  conversation  be 
tween  her  chief  and  the  impresario  on  the  way  out,  but 
had  been  foiled  by  Mariposa's  excited  chatter. 

"He  says  that  she  has  an  unusually  fine  voice,  which, 
with  proper  training,  would,  as  far  as  they  can  say 
now,  be  perfectly  suitable  for  grand  opera.  It's  what 
they  call  a  dramatic  mezzo-soprano,  with  something 
particularly  good  about  the  lower  notes.  Lepine  is  to 
see  me  again  before  he  goes." 

"Did  he  suggest  what  she  ought  to  do?" 

"Yes ;  he  spoke  of  Paris  as  the  best  place  to  send 
her.  He  knows  some  famous  teacher  there  that  he 
says  is  the  proper  person  for  her  to  study  with.  He 
seemed  to  think  that  two  years  of  study  would  be 
sufficient  for  her.  She'd  be  ready  to  make  her  ap 
pearance  in  grand  opera  after  that  time." 

"Good  heavens !"  breathed  Mrs.  Willers  in  a  trans 
port  of  pious  triumph,  "just  think  of  it!  And  now  up 
in  that  cottage  on  Pine  Street  getting  fifty  cents  a  les 
son,  and  with  only  four  pupils." 

"In  two  years,"  said  Shackleton,  who  was  speaking 
more  to  himself  than  to  her,  "she'll  be  twenty-seven 
years  old — just  in  her  prime." 

"She'll  be  twenty-six,"  corrected  Mrs.  Willers; 
"she's  only  twenty-four  now." 


THE   VISION   AND   THE   DREAM      149 

He  raised  his  brows  with  a  little  air  of  amused 
apology. 

"Twenty-four,  is  it?"  he  said.  "Well,  that's  all  the 
better.  Twenty-six  is  one  year  better  than  twenty- 
seven." 

"It'll  be  like  the  'Innocents  Abroad'  to  see  her  and 
her  mother  in  Paris,"  said  Mrs.  Willers.  "They're  just 
two  of  the  most  unsophisticated  females  that  ever 
strayed  out  of  the  golden  age." 

The  man  vouchsafed  no  answer  to  this  remark  for  a 
moment ;  then  he  said : 

"The  mother's  health  is  very  delicate?  She's  quite 
an  invalid,  you  say?" 

"Quite.  But  she's  one  of  the  sweetest,  most  un 
complaining  women  you  ever  laid  eyes  on.  You'd 
understand  the  daughter  better  if  you  knew  the  mother. 
She's  so  gentle  and  girlish.  And  then  they've  lived 
round  in  such  a  sort  of  quiet,  secluded  way.  It's 
funny  to  me  because  they  had  plenty  of  money  when 
Mr.  Moreau  was  alive.  But  they  never  seemed  to  go 
into  society,  or  know  many  people;  they  just  seemed 
enough  for  each  other,  especially  when  the  father  was 
with  them.  They  simply  adored  him,  and  he  must 
have  been  a  fine  man.  They — " 

"Is  Mrs.  Moreau's  state  of  health  too  bad  to  allow 
her  to  travel?"  said  Shackleton,  interrupting  suddenly 
and  rudely. 

Mrs.  Willers  colored  slightly.  She  knew  her  chief 
well  enough  to  realize  that  his  tone  indicated  annoy 
ance.  Why  did  he  so  dislike  to  hear  anything  about 
the  late  Dan  Moreau  ? 


ISO  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"As  to  that  I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "She's  so  much 
of  an  invalid  that  she  rarely  goes  out.  But  with  good 
care  she  might  be  able  to  take  a  journey  and  benefit  by 
it.  A  sea  trip  sometimes  cures  people." 

"Miss  Moreau  couldn't,  and,  I  have  no  doubt, 
wouldn't  leave  her.  It'll  therefore  be  necessary  for 
the  mother  to  go  to  Paris  with  the  girl,  and  if  she  is  so 
complete  and  helpless  an  invalid  she'll  certainly  be  of 
no  assistance  to  her  daughter — only  a  care." 

"She'd  undoubtedly  be  a  care.  But  a  person 
couldn't  separate  those  two.  They're  wrapped  up  in 
each  other.  It's  a  pity  you  don't  know  Mrs.  Moreau, 
Mr.  Shackleton." 

For  the  second  time  that  afternoon  Mrs.  Willers 
was  conscious  that  words  she  had  intended  to  be  gently 
ingratiating  had  given  mysterious  offense  to  her  em 
ployer.  Now  he  said,  with  more  than  an  edge  of 
sharpness  to  his  words : 

"I've  no  doubt  it's  a  pity,  Mrs.  Willers.  But  there 
are  so  many  things  and  people  it's  a  pity  I  don't  know, 
that  if  I  came  to  think  it  over  I'd  probably  fall  into  a 
state  of  melancholia.  Also,  let  me  assure  you,  that  I 
haven't  the  least  intention  of  trying  to  separate  Mrs. 
Moreau  and  her  daughter.  What  I'm  just  now 
bothered  about  is  the  fact  that  this  lady  is  hardly  of 
sufficient  worldly  experience,  and  certainly  has  not 
sufficient  strength  to  take  care  of  the  girl  in  a  strange 
country." 

"Well,  no,"  said  Mrs.  Willers  with  slow  reluctance, 
"it  would  be  the  other  way  round,  the  girl  would  be 
taking  care  of  her." 

"That's  exactly  what  I  thought.     The  only  way  out 


THE   VISION   AND   THE   DREAM      151 

of  it  will  be  to  send  some  one  with  them.  A  woman 
who  could  take  care  of  them  both,  chaperone  the 
daughter  and  look  after  the  mother." 

There  was  a  silence.  Mrs.  Willers  began  to  under 
stand  why  Mr.  Shackleton  had  walked  down  to  The 
Trumpet  office  with  her.  The  walk  was  over,  for  they 
were  at  the  office  door,  and  the  conversation  had 
reached  the  point  to  which  he  had  evidently  intended 
to  bring  it  before  they  parted. 

As  they  turned  into  the  arched  doorway  and  began 
the  ascent  of  the  stairs,  Mrs.  Willers  replied : 

"I  think  that  would  be  a  very  good  idea,  Mr.  Shackle- 
ton.  That  is,  if  you  can  find  the  right  woman." 

"Oh,  I've  got  her  now,"  he  answered,  giving  her  a 
quick,  side-long  glance.  "I  think  it  would  be  a  good 
arrangement  for  all  parties.  The  Trumpet  wants  a 
Paris  correspondent." 

The  door  leading  into  the  press-rooms  opened  off 
the  landing  they  had  reached,  and  he  turned  into  this 
with  a  word  of  farewell,  and  a  hand  lifted  to  his  hat 
brim.  Mrs.  Willers  continued  the  ascent  alone.  As 
she  mounted  upward  she  said  to  herself : 

"The  best  thing  for  me  to  do  is  to  get  a  French 
phrase  book  on  the  way  home  this  evening,  and  begin 
studying :  'Have  you  the  green  pantaloons  of  the  mil 
ler's  mother  ?'" 

The  elation  of  his  mood  was  still  with  Shackleton 
when,  two  hours  later,  he  alighted  from  the  carriage 
at  the  steps  of  his  country  house.  He  went  upstairs 
to  his  own  rooms  with  a  buoyant  tread.  In  his  library, 
with  the  windows  thrown  open  to  the  soft,  scented  air, 
he  sat  smoking  and  thinking.  The  October  dusk  was 


152  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

closing  in,  when  he  heard  the  wheels  of  a  carriage  on 
the  drive  and  the  sound  of  voices.  His  women-folk 
with  the  second  of  the  Thurston  girls — the  one  guest 
the  house  now  contained — were  returning  from  the 
afternoon  round  of  visits  that  was  the  main  diversion 
of  their  life  during  the  summer  months,  and  swept  the 
country  houses  from  Redwood  City  to  Menlo  Park. 

It  was  a  small  dinner  table  that  evening.  Winslow 
had  stayed  in  town  over  night,  and  Shackleton  sat  at 
the  head  of  a  shrunken  board,  with  Bessie  opposite 
him,  his  daughter  to  the  left,  and  Pussy  Thurston  on 
his  right.  Pussy  was  Maud's  best  friend  and  was  one 
of  the  beauties  of  San  Francisco.  To-night  she  looked 
especially  pretty  in  a  pale  green  crape  dress,  with  green 
leaves  in  her  fair  hair.  Her  skin  was  of  a  shell-like 
purity  of  pink  and  white,  her  face  was  small,  with 
regular  features  and  a  sweet,  childish  smile. 

She  and  her  sister  were  the  only  children  of  the 
famous  Judge  Beauregard  Thurston,  in  his  day  one 
of  those  brilliant  lawyers  who  brought  glory  to  the 
California  bar.  He  had  made  a  fortune,  lived  on  it 
recklessly  and  magnificently,  and  died  leaving  his 
daughters  almost  penniless.  He  had  been  in  the  hey 
day  of  his  splendor  when  Jake  Shackleton,  just  strug 
gling  into  the  public  eye,  had  come  to  San  Francisco, 
and  the  proud  Southerner  had  not  scrupled  to  treat 
the  raw  mining  man  with  careless  scorn.  Shackleton 
evened  the  score  before  Thurston's  death,  and  he  still 
soothed  his  wounded  pride  with  the  thought  that  the 
two  daughters  of  the  man  who  had  once  despised  him 
were  largely  dependent  on  his  wife's  charity.  Bessie 
took  them  to  balls  and  parties,  dressed  them,  almost  fed 


THE   VISION   AND   THE   DREAM      153 

them.  The  very  green  crape  gown  in  which  Pussy 
looked  so  pretty  to-night  had  been  included  in  Maud's 
bill  at  a  fashionable  dressmaker's. 

Personally  he  liked  Pussy,  whose  beauty  and  win 
ning  manners  lent  a  luster  to  his  house.  Once  or  twice 
to-night  she  caught  him  looking  at  her  with  a  cold, 
debating  glance  in  which  there  was  little  of  the  admira 
tion  she  was  accustomed  to  receiving  since  the  days  of 
her  first  long  dress. 

He  was  in  truth  regarding  her  critically  for  the  first 
time,  for  the  Bonanza  King  was  a  man  on  whom  the 
beauty  of  women  cast  no  spell.  He  was  comparing 
her  with  another  and  a  more  regally  handsome  girl. 
Pussy  Thurston  would  look  insipid  and  insignificant 
before  the  stately  splendor  of  his  own  daughter. 

He  smiled  as  he  realized  Mariposa's  superiority. 
The  young  girl  saw  the  smile,  and  said  with  the  privi 
leged  coquetry  of  a  maid  who  all  her  life  has  known 
herself  favored  above  her  fellows : 

"Why  are  you  smiling  all  to  yourself,  Mr.  Shackle- 
ton  ?  Can't  we  know  if  it  is  something  pleasant  ?" 

"I  was  looking  at  something  pretty,"  he  answered, 
his  eyes  full  of  amusement  as  they  rested  on  her  charm 
ing  face.  "That  generally  makes  people  smile." 

She  was  so  used  to  such  remarks  that  her  rose-leaf 
color  did  not  vary  the  fraction  of  a  shade.  Maud,  to 
whom  no  one  ever  paid  compliments,  looked  at  her 
with  wistful  admiration. 

"Is  that  all?"  she  said  with  an  air  of  disappoint 
ment.  "I  hoped  it  was  something  that  would  make  us 
all  smile." 

"Well,  I  have  an  idea  that  may  make  you  all  smile" 


154  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

— he  turned  to  his  wife — "how  would  you  like  to  go 
to  Europe  next  spring,  Bessie  ?" 

Mrs.  Shackleton  looked  surprised  and  not  greatly 
elated.  On  their  last  trip  to  Europe,  two  years  before, 
her  husband  had  been  so  bored  by  the  joys  of  foreign 
travel  that  she  had  made  up  her  mind  she  would  never 
ask  him  to  go  again.  Now  she  said : 

"But  you  don't  want  to  go  to  Europe.  You  said 
last  time  you  hated  it." 

"Did  I  ?  Yes,  I  guess  I  did.  Well,  I'm  prepared 
to  like  it  this  time.  We  could  take  a  spin  over  in  the 
spring  to  London  and  Paris.  We'd  make  quite  a  stay 
in  Paris,  and  you  women  could  buy  clothes.  You'd 
come,  too,  Pussy,  wouldn't  you?"  he  said,  turning  to 
the  girl. 

Her  color  rose  now  and  her  eyes  sparkled.  She  had 
never  been  even  to  New  York. 

"Wouldn't  I?"  she  said.  "That  does  make  me 
smile." 

"I  thought  so,"  he  answered  good  humoredly — "and 
Maud,  you'd  like  it,  of  course  ?" 

Maud  did  not  like  the  thought  of  going  at  all.  In 
this  little  party  of  four,  two  were  moved  in  their  ac 
tions  by  secret  predilections  of  which  the  others  were 
ignorant.  Maud  thought  of  leaving  her  love  affair  at 
the  critical  point  it  had  reached,  and,  with  anguish  at 
her  heart,  looked  heavily  indifferent. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said,  crumbling  her  bread,  "I 
don't  think  it's  such  fun  in  Europe.  You  just  travel 
round  in  little  stuffy  trains,  and  have  to  live  in  hotels 
without  baths." 

"Well,  you  and  I,  Pussy,"  said  Shackleton,  "seem  to 


THE   VISION   AND   THE   DREAM      155 

be  the  only  two  who've  got  any  enthusiasm.  You'll 
have  to  try  and  put  some  into  Maud,  and  if  the  worst 
comes  to  the  worst  we  can  kidnap  the  old  lady." 

He  was  in  an  unusually  good  temper,  and  the  dinner 
was  animated  and  merry.  Only  Maud,  after  the  Euro 
pean  suggestion,  grew  more  stolidly  quiet  than  ever. 
But  she  cheered  herself  by  the  thought  that  the  spring 
was  six  months  off  yet,  and  who  could  tell  what  might 
happen  in  six  months  ? 

After  dinner  the  ladies  repaired  to  the  music  room, 
and  Shackleton,  following  a  custom  of  his,  passed 
through  one  of  the  long  windows  into  the  garden,  there 
to  pace  up  and  down  while  he  smoked  his  cigar. 

The  night  was  warm  and  odorous  with  the  scent  of 
hidden  blossoms.  Now  and  then  his  foot  crunched  the 
gravel  of  a  path,  as  his  walk  took  him  back  and  forth 
over  the  long  stretch  of  lawn  broken  by  flower  beds 
and  narrow  walks.  The  great  bulk  of  the  house,  its 
black  mass  illumined  by  congeries  of  lit  windows, 
showed  an  inky,  irregular  outline  against '  the  star- 
strewn  sky. 

Presently  the  sound  of  a  piano  floated  out  from  the 
music  room.  The  man  stopped  his  pacing,  listened  for 
an  instant,  and  then  passed  round  to  the  side  of  the 
house.  The  French  windows  of  the  music  room  were 
opened,  throwing  elongated  squares  of  light  over  the 
balcony  and  the  grass  beyond.  He  paused  in  the  dark 
ness  and  looked  through  one  of  them.  There,  like  a 
painting  framed  by  the  window  casing,  was  Pussy 
Thurston  seated  at  the  piano  singing,  while  Maud  sat 
near  by  listening.  One  of  Miss  Thurston's  most  ad 
mired  social  graces  was  the  gift  of  song.  She  had  a 


156  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

small  agreeable  voice,  and  had  been  well  taught ;  but 
the  light,  frail  tones  sounded  thin  in  the  wide  silence 
of  the  night.  It  was  the  feebly  pretty  performance  of 
the  "accomplished  young  lady." 

Shackleton  listened  with  a  slight  smile  that  increased 
as  the  song  drew  to  a  close.  As  it  ceased  he  moved 
away,  the  red  light  of  his  cigar  coming  and  going  in 
the  darkness. 

"Singing!"  he  said  to  himself,  "they  call  that  sing 
ing  !  Wait  till  they  hear  my  daughter !" 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   REVELATION 

"Praised  be  the  fathomless  universe 

For  life  and  for  joy  and  for  objects  and  knowledge  curious, 
And  for  love,  sweet  love — but  praise,  praise,  praise, 
For  the  sure-enwinding  arms  of  cool-enfolding  Death, 

The  night  in  silence  under  many  a  star, 
The  ocean  shore  and  the  husky  whispering  wave  whose  voice 

I  hear, 

And  the  soul  turning  to  thee,  O  vast  and  well-veiled  Death, 
And  the  body  gratefully  nestling  close  to  thee." 

— WHITMAN. 

From  the  day  when  Mrs.  Willers  had  appeared  with 
the  news  of  Shackleton's  interest  in  her  daughter, 
Lucy's  health  had  steadily  waned.  The  process  of  de 
cay  was  so  quiet,  albeit  so  sure  and  swift,  that  Mari- 
posa,  accustomed  to  the  ups  and  downs  of  her  mother's 
invalid  condition,  was  unaware  that  the  elder  woman's 
sands  were  almost  run.  The  pale  intensity,  the  cold 
ness  of  the  hand  gripped  round  hers,  that  had  greeted 
her  account  of  the  recital  at  the  Opera  House,  seemed 
to  the  girl  only  the  reflection  of  her  own  eager  ex 
ultation.  She  was  blind,  not  only  from  ignorance,  but 
from  the  egotistic  preoccupations  of  her  youth.  It 

157 


158  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

seemed  impossible  to  think  of  her  mother's  failing  in 
her  loving  response,  now  that  the  sun  was  rising  on 
their  dark  horizon. 

But  Lucy  knew  that  she  was  dying.  Her  feeble  body 
had  received  its  coup  de  grace  on  the  day  that  Mrs. 
Willers  brought  the  news  of  Shackleton's  wish  to  see 
his  child.  Since  then  she  had  spent  long  hours  in 
thought.  When  her  mind  was  clear  enough  she  had 
pondered  on  the  situation  trying  to  see  what  was  best 
to  do  for  Mariposa's  welfare.  The  problem  that  faced 
her  terrified  her.  The  dying  woman  was  having  the 
last  struggle  with  herself. 

One  week  after  the  recital  at  the  Opera  House  she 
had  grown  so  much  worse  that  Mariposa  had  called 
in  the  doctor  they  had  had  in  attendance,  off  and  on, 
since  their  arrival.  He  was  grave  and  there  was  a  con 
sultation.  When  she  saw  their  faces  the  cold  dread 
that  had  been  slowly  growing  in  the  girl's  heart  seemed 
suddenly  to  expand  and  chill  her  whole  being.  Mrs. 
Moreau  was  undoubtedly  very  ill,  though  there  was 
still  hope.  Yet  their  looks  were  sober  and  pitying  as 
they  listened  to  the  daughter's  reiterated  asseverations 
that  her  mother  had  often  been  worse  and  made  a  suc 
cessful  rally. 

An  atmosphere  of  illness  settled  down  like  a  fog  on 
the  little  cottage.  A  nurse  appeared;  the  doctors 
seemed  to  be  in  the  house  many  times  a  day.  Mrs. 
Willers,  as  soon  as  she  heard,  came  up,  no  longer  over 
dressed  and  foolish,  but  grave  and  helpful.  After  a 
half-hour  spent  at  Lucy's  bedside,  wherein  the  sick 
woman  had  spoken  little,  and  then  only  about  her 
daughter,  Mrs.  Willers  had  gone  to  the  office  of  The 


THE   REVELATION  159 

Trumpet,  frowning  in  her  sympathetic  pain.  It  was 
Saturday,  and  Shackleton  had  already  left  for  Menlo 
Park  when  she  reached  the  office.  But  she  determined 
to  see  him  early  on  Monday  and  tell  him  of  the  straits 
of  his  old  friend's  widow  and  child.  Mrs.  Willers 
knew  the  signs  of  the  scarcity  of  money,  and  knew  also 
the  overwhelming  expenses  of  sickness.  What  she  did 
not  know  was  that  on  Friday  morning  Mariposa  had 
wept  over  her  check-book,  and  then  gone  out  and  sold 
the  diamond  brooch. 

The  long  Sunday — the  interminable  day  of  strained 
anxiety — passed,  shrouded  in  rain.  When  her  mother 
fell  into  the  light  sleep  that  now  marked  her  condition, 
Mariposa  mechanically  went  to  the  window  of  the  bed 
room  and  looked  out.  It  was  one  of  those  blinding 
rains  that  usher  in  the  San  Francisco  winter,  the  water 
falling  in  straight  lances  that  show  against  the  light  like 
thin  tubes  of  glass,  and  strike  the  pavement  with  a 
vicious  impact,  which  splinters  them  into  spray.  It 
drummed  on  the  tin  roof  above  the  bedroom  with  an 
incessant  hollow  sound,  and  ran  in  a  torn  ribbon  of 
water  from  the  gutter  on  the  eaves. 

The  prospect  that  the  window  commanded  seemed 
in  dreariness  to  match  the  girl's  thoughts.  That  part  of 
Pine  Street  was  still  in  the  unfinished  condition  de 
scribed  by  the  words  "far  out."  Vacant  lots  yawned 
between  the  houses ;  the  badly  paved  roadbed  was  an 
expanse  of  deeply  rutted  mud,  with  yellow  ponds  of 
rain  at  the  sewer  mouths.  The  broken  wooden  side 
walk  gleamed  with  moisture  and  was  evenly  striped 
with  lines  of  vivid  green  where  the  grass  sprouted  be 
tween  the  boards.  Now  and  then  a  wayfarer  hurried 


160  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

by,  crouched  under  the  dome  of  an  umbrella  spouting 
water  from  every  rib. 

The  gray  twilight  settled  early,  and  Mariposa,  drop 
ping  the  curtain,  turned  to  the  room  behind  her.  The 
light  of  a  small  fire  and  a  shaded  lamp  sent  a  softened 
glow  over  the  apartment,  which,  despite  its  poverty,  be 
spoke  the  taste  of  gentlewomen  in  the  simple  prettiness 
of  its  furnishings.  The  nurse,  a  middle-aged  woman 
of  a  kindly  and  capable  aspect,  sat  by  the  fire  in  a 
wicker  rocking-chair,  reading  a  paper.  Beside  her,  on 
a  table,  stood  the  sick-room  paraphernalia  of  glasses 
and  bottles.  The  regular  creak  of  the  rocking-chair, 
and  an  occasional  snap  from  the  fire,  were  the  only 
sounds  that  punctuated  the  steady  drumming  of  the 
rain  on  the  tin  roof. 

A  Japanese  screen  was  half-way  about  the  bed,  shut 
ting  it  from  the  drafts  of  the  door,  and  in  its  shelter 
Lucy  lay  sleeping  her  light,  breathless  sleep.  In  this 
shaded  light,  in  the  relaxed  attitude  of  unconscious 
ness,  she  presented  the  appearance  of  a  young  girl 
hardly  older  than  her  daughter.  Yet  the  hand  of  death 
was  plainly  on  her,  as  even  Mariposa  could  now  see. 

Without  sound  the  girl  passed  from  the  room  to  her 
own  beyond.  Her  grief  had  seized  her,  and  the  truth, 
fought  against  with  the  desperate  inexperience  of 
youth,  forced  itself  on  her.  She  threw  herself  on  her 
bed  and  lay  there  battling  with  the  sickness  of  despair 
that  such  knowledge  brings.  Twilight  faded  and  dark 
ness  came.  In  answer  to  the  servant's  tap  on  the  door, 
and  announcement  of  dinner,  she  called  back  that  she 
desired  none.  The  room  was  as  dark  about  her  as  her 
own  thoughts.  From  the  door  that  led  into  the  sick 


THE   REVELATION  161 

chamber,  only  partly  closed,  a  shaft  of  light  cut  the 
blackness,  and  on  this  light  she  fastened  her  eyes, 
swollen  with  tears,  feeling  herself  stupefied  with  sor 
row. 

As  she  lay  thus  on  the  bed,  she  heard  the  creaking  of 
the  wicker-chair  as  the  nurse  arose,  then  came  the  clink 
of  the  spoon  and  the  glass,  and  the  woman's  low  voice, 
and  then  her  mother's,  stronger  and  clearer  than  it  had 
been  for  some  days.  There  was  an  interchange  of  re 
marks  between  nurse  and  patient,  the  sound  of  careful 
steps,  and  the  crack  of  light  suddenly  expanded  as  the 
door  was  opened.  Against  this  background,  clear  and 
smoothly  yellow  as  gold  leaf,  the  nurse's  figure  was 
revealed  in  sharp  silhouette. 

"Are  you  there,  Miss  Moreau?"  she  said  in  a  low 
voice.  Mariposa  started  with  a  hurried  reply. 

"Well,  your  mother  wants  to  see  you  and  you'd  bet 
ter  come.  Her  mind  seems  much  clearer  and  it  may 
not  be  so  again." 

The  girl  rose  from  the  bed  trying  to  compose  her 
face.  In  the  light  of  the  open  door  the  woman  saw  its 
distress  and  looked  at  her  pityingly. 

"Don't  tire  her,"  she  said,  "but  I  advise  you  to  say 
all  you  have  to  say.  She  may  not  be  this  way  again." 

Mariposa  crossed  the  room  to  the  bed.  Her  mother 
was  lying  on  her  side,  pinched,  pale  and  with  darkly 
circled  eyes. 

"Have  you  just  waked  up,  darling?"  said  the  girl, 
tenderly. 

"No,"  she  answered,  with  a  curious  lack  of  response 
in  manner  and  tone ;  "I  have  been  awake  some  time.  I 
was  thinking." 


162  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Why  didn't  you  send  Mrs.  Brown  for  me?  I  was 
in  my  room  passing  the  time  till  you  woke  up." 

"I  was  thinking  and  I  wanted  to  finish.  I  have  been 
thinking  a  long  time,  days  and  weeks." 

Mariposa  thought  her  mind  was  wandering,  and  sit 
ting  down  on  a  chair  by  the  bedside,  took  her  hand  and 
pressed  it  gently  without  speaking.  Her  mother  lay 
in  the  same  attitude,  her  profile  toward  her,  her  eyes 
looking  vacantly  at  the  screen.  Suddenly  she  said : 

"You  know  my  old  desk,  the  little  rose-wood  one 
Dan  gave  me?  Take  my  keys  and  open  it,  and  in  the 
bottom  you'll  see  two  envelopes,  with  no  writing.  One 
looks  dirty  and  old.  Bring  them  to  me  here." 

Mariposa  rose  wondering,  and  looking  anxiously  at 
her  mother.  The  elder  woman  saw  the  look,  and  said 
weakly  and  almost  peevishly: 

"Go ;  be  quick.  I  am  not  strong  enough  to  talk  long. 
The  keys  are  in  the  work-box." 

The  girl  obeyed  as  quickly  as  possible.  The  desk 
was  a  small  one  resting  on  the  center  table.  It  had 
been  a  present  of  her  father's  to  her  mother,  and  she 
remembered  it  from  her  earliest  childhood  in  a  prom 
inent  position  in  her  mother's  room.  She  opened  it, 
and  in  a  few  moments,  under  old  letters,  memoranda 
and  souvenirs,  found  the  two  envelopes.  Carrying 
them  to  the  bed  she  gave  them  to  her  mother. 

Lucy  took  them  with  an  unsteady  hand,  and  for  a 
moment  lay  staring  at  her  daughter  and  not  moving. 
Then  she  said : 

"Put  the  pillows  under  my  head.  It's  easier  to 
breathe  when  I'm  higher,"  and  as  Mariposa  arranged 


THE   REVELATION  163 

them,  she  added,  in  a  lower  voice:  "And  tell  Mrs. 
Brown  to  go ;  I  want  to  be  alone  with  you." 

Mariposa  looked  out  beyond  the  screen,  and  seeing 
the  nurse  still  reading  the  paper,  told  her  to  go  to  the 
kitchen  and  get  her  dinner.  The  woman  rose  with 
alacrity,  and  asking  Mariposa  to  call  her  if  the  invalid 
showed  signs  of  fatigue,  or  any  change,  left  the  room. 

The  girl  turned  back  to  the  bedside  and  took  the 
chair.  Lucy  had  taken  from  the  dirty  envelope  a  worn 
and  faded  paper,  which  she  slowly  unfolded.  As  she 
did  so,  she  looked  at  her  daughter  with  sunken  eyes 
and  said: 

"These  are  my  marriage  certificates." 

Mariposa,  again  thinking  that  her  mind  was  wander 
ing,  tried  to  smile,  and  answered  gently : 

"Your  marriage  certificate,  dear.  You  were  only 
married  once." 

"I  was  married  twice/'  said  Lucy,  and  handed  the 
girl  the  two  papers. 

Still  supposing  her  mother  slightly  delirious,  the 
daughter  took  the  papers  and  looked  at  them.  The  one 
her  eye  first  fell  on  was  that  of  the  original  marriage. 
She  read  the  names  without  at  first  realizing  whose 
they  were.  Then  the  significance  of  the  "Lucy  Eraser" 
came  upon  her.  Her  glance  leaped  to  the  second  paper, 
and  at  the  first  sweep  of  her  eyes  over  it  she  saw  it  was 
the  marriage  certificate  of  her  father  and  mother, 
Daniel  Moreau  and  Lucy  Eraser,  dated  at  Placerville 
twenty-five  years  before.  She  turned  back  to  the  other 
paper,  now  more  than  bewildered.  She  held  it  near  her 
face,  as  though  it  were  difficult  to  read,  and  in  the  dead 


164  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

silence  of  the  room  it  began  to  rustle  with  the  trembling 
of  her  hand.  A  fear  of  something  hideous  and  over 
whelming  seized  her.  With  pale  lips  she  read  the 
names,  and  the  date,  antedating  by  five  years  the  other 
certificate. 

"Mother !"  she  cried,  in  a  wild  voice  of  inquiry,  drop 
ping  the  paper  on  the  bed. 

Lucy,  raised  on  her  pillows,  was  looking  at  her  with 
a  haggard  intentness.  All  the  vitality  left  in  her  ex 
piring  body  seemed  concentrated  in  her  eyes. 

"I  was  married  twice,"  she  said  slowly. 

"But  how?  When?  What  does  it  mean?  Mother, 
what  does  it  mean?" 

"I  was  married  twice,"  she  repeated.  "In  St.  Louis 
to  Jake  Shackleton,  and  in  Placerville,  five  years  after, 
to  Dan  Moreau.  And  I  was  never  divorced  from  Jake. 
It  was  not  according  to  the  law.  I  was  never  Dan's 
lawful  wife." 

The  girl  sat  staring,  the  meaning  of  the  words  slowly 
penetrating  her  brain.  She  was  too  stunned  to  speak. 
Her  face  was  as  white  as  her  mother's.  For  a  tragic 
moment  these  two  white  faces  looked  at  each  other. 
The  mother's,  with  death  waiting  to  claim  her,  was 
void  of  all  stress  or  emotion.  The  daughter's,  waking 
to  life,  was  rigid  with  horrified  amaze. 

Propped  by  her  pillows,  Lucy  spoke  again ;  her  sen 
tences  were  short  and  with  pauses  between : 

"Jake  Shackleton  married  me  in  St.  Louis  when  I 
was  fifteen.  He  was  soon  tired  of  me.  We  went  to 
Salt  Lake  City.  He  became  a  Mormon  there,  and  took 
a  second  wife.  She  was  a  waitress  in  a  hotel.  She's 
his  wife  now.  He  brought  us  both  to  California  twenty- 


THE   REVELATION  165 

five  years  ago.  On  the  way  across,  on  the  plains  of 
Utah,  you  were  born.  He  is  your  father,  Mariposa." 

She  made  an  effort  and  sat  up.  Her  breathing  was 
becoming  difficult,  but  her  purpose  gave  her  strength. 
This  was  the  information  that  for  weeks  she  had  been 
nerving  herself  to  impart. 

"He  is  your  father,"  she  repeated.  "That's  what  I 
wanted  to  tell  you." 

Mariposa  made  no  answer,  and  again  she  repeated : 

"He  is  your  father.  Do  you  understand  ?  Answer 
me." 

"Yes —  I  don't  know.  Oh,  mother,  it's  so  strange 
and  horrible.  And  you  sitting  there  and  looking  at  me 
like  that,  and  telling  it  to  me !  Oh, — mother !" 

She  put  her  hands  over  her  face  for  an  instant,  and 
then  dropping  them,  leaned  over  on  the  bed  and 
grasped  her  mother's  wrists. 

"You're  wandering  in  your  mind.  It's  just  some  hid 
eous  dream  you've  had  in  your  fever.  Dearest,  tell  me 
it's  not  true.  It  can't  be  true.  Why,  think  of  you  and 
me  and  father  always  together  and  with  no  dreadful 
secret  behind  us  like  that.  Oh — it  can't  be  true !" 

Lucy  looked  at  the  papers  lying  brown  and  torn  on 
the  white  quilt.  Mariposa's  eyes  followed  the  same 
direction,  and  with  a  groan  her  head  sank  on  her  arms 
extended  along  the  bed.  Her  mother's  hand,  cold  and 
light,  was  laid  on  one  of  hers,  but  the  dying  woman's 
face  was  held  in  its  quiet,  unstirred  apathy,  as  she 
spoke  again: 

"Jake  was  hard  to  me  on  the  trip.  He  was  a  hard 
man  and  he  never  loved  me.  After  Bessie  came  he  got 
to  dislike  me.  I  was  always  a  drag,  he  said.  I  couldn't 


166  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

seem  to  get  well  after  you  were  born.  Coming  over  the 
Sierras  we  stopped  at  a  cabin.  Dan  was  there  with 
another  man,  a  miner,  called  Fletcher.  That  was  the 
first  .time  I  ever  saw  Dan." 

Mariposa  lifted  her  head  and  her  eyes  fastened  on 
her  mother's  face.  The  indifference  that  had  held  it 
seemed  breaking.  A  faint  smile  was  on  her  lips,  a  light 
of  reminiscence  lit  its  gray  pallor. 

"He  was  always  good  to  anything  that  was  sick  or 
weak.  He  was  sorry  for  me.  He  tried  to  make  Jake 
stop  longer,  so  I  could  get  rested.  But  Jake  wouldn't. 
He  said  I  had  to  go  on.  I  couldn't,  but  knew  I  must, 
if  he  said  it.  We  were  going  to  start  when  Jake  said 
he'd  exchange  me  for  the  pair  of  horses  the  two  miners 
had  in  the  shed.  So  he  left  me  and  took  the  horses." 

"Exchanged  you  for  the  horses  ?  Left  you  there  sick 
and  alone?" 

"Yes,  Jake  and  Bessie  went  on  with  the  horses.  I 
stayed.  I  was  too  sick  to  care." 

She  made  a  slight  pause,  either  from  weakness,  or  in 
an  effort  to  arrange  the  next  part  of  her  story. 

"I  lived  there  with  them  for  a  month.  I  was  sick 
and  they  took  care  of  me.  Then  one  day  Fletcher 
stole  all  the  money  and  the  only  horse  and  never  came 
back.  We  were  alone  there  then,  Dan  and  I.  I  got 
better.  I  came  to  love  him  more  each  day.  We  were 
snowed  in  all  winter,  and  we  lived  as  man  and  wife.  In 
the  spring  we  rode  into  Hangtown  and  were  married." 

She  stopped,  a  look  of  ineffable  sweetness  passed 
over  her  face,  and  she  said  in  a  low  voice,  as  if  speak 
ing  to  herself : 


THE   REVELATION  167 

"Oh,  that  beautiful  winter !  There  is  a  God,  to  be  so 
good  to  women  who  have  suffered  as  I  had." 

Mariposa  sat  dumbly  regarding  her.  It  was  like  a 
frightful  nightmare.  Everything  was  strange,  the  sick 
room,  the  bed  with  the  screen  around  it,  her  mother's 
face  with  its  hollow  eyes  and  pinched  nose.  Only  the 
two  old  dirty  papers  on  the  white  counterpane  seemed 
to  say  that  this  was  real. 

Lucy's  eyes,  which  had  been  looking  back  into  that 
glorified  past  of  love  and  youth,  returned  to  her  daugh 
ter's  face. 

"But  Jake  is  your  father,"  she  said.  "That's  what  I 
had  to  tell  you.  He'll  be  good  to  you.  That  was  why 
he  wanted  to  find  you  and  help  you." 

"Yes,"  said  Mariposa,  dully,  "I  understand  that 
now ;  that  was  why  he  wanted  to  help  me." 

"He'll  be  good  to  you,"  went  on  the  low,  weak  voice, 
interrupted  by  quick  breaths.  "I  know  Jake.  He'll  be 
proud  of  you.  You're  handsome  and  talented,  not 
weak  and  poor  spirited,  as  I  was.  You're  his  only  legit 
imate  child ;  the  others  are  not ;  they  were  born  in  Cal 
ifornia.  They're  Bessie's  children,  and  I  was  his  only 
real  wife.  You'll  let  him  take  care  of  you  ?  Oh,  Mari 
posa,  my  darling,  I've  told  you  all  this  that  you  might 
understand  and  let  him  take  care  of  you." 

She  made  a  last  call  on  her  strength  and  leaned  for- 
word.  Her  dying  body  was  re- vivified ;  all  her  moth 
er's  agony  of  love  appeared  on  her  face.  In  determin 
ing  to  destroy  the  illusions  of  her  child  to  secure  her 
future,  she  had  made  the  one  heroic  effort  of  her  life. 
It  was  done,  and  for  a  last  moment  of  relief  and  tri 
umph  she  was  thrillingly  alive. 


168  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Mariposa,  in  a  spasm  of  despair,  threw  herself  for 
ward  on  the  bed. 

"Oh,  why  did  you  tell  me  ?  Why  did  you  tell  me  ?" 
she  cried.  "Why  didn't  you  let  me  think  it  was  the  way 
it  used  to  be  ?  Why  did  you  tell  me  ?" 

Lucy  laid  her  hand  on  the  bowed  head. 

"Because  I  wanted  you  to  understand  and  let  him  be 
your  father." 

"My  father!  That  man!  Oh,  no,  no!" 

"You  must  promise  me.  Oh,  my  beloved  child,  I 
couldn't  leave  you  alone.  It  seemed  as  if  God  had  said 
to  me,  'Die  in  peace.  Her  father  will  care  for  her.'  I 
couldn't  go  and  leave  you  this  way,  without  a  friend. 
Now  I  can  rest  in  peace.  Promise  to  let  him  take  care 
of  you.  Promise." 

"Oh,  mother,  don't  ask  me.  What  have  you  just  told 
me?  That  he  sold  you  to  a  stranger  for  a  pair  of 
horses,  left  you  to  die  in  a  cabin  in  the  mountains ! 
That's  not  my  father.  My  father  was  Dan  Moreau.  I 
can  do  nothing  but  hate  that  other  man  now." 

"Don't  blame  him,  dear,  the  past  is  over.  Forgive 
him.  Forgive  me.  If  I  sinned  there  were  excuses  for 
me.  I  had  suffered  too  much.  I  loved  too  well." 

Her  voice  suddenly  hesitated  and  broke.  A  gray 
pallor  ran  over  her  face  and  a  look  of  terror  transfixed 
her  eyes.  She  straightened  her  arms  out  toward  her 
daughter. 

"Promise,"  she  gasped,  "promise." 

With  a  spring  Mariposa  snatched  the  drooping  body 
in  her  arms  and  cried  into  the  face,  settling  into  cold 
rigidity : 


THE   REVELATION  169 

"Yes — yes — I  promise !  All — anything.  Oh,  mother, 
darling,  look  at  me.  I  promise." 

She  gently  shook  the  limp  form,  but  it  was  nerve 
less,  only  the  head  oscillated  slightly  from  side  to  side. 

"Mother,  look  at  me,"  she  cried  frantically.  "Look 
at  me,  not  past  me.  Come  back  to  me.  Speak  to  me,  I 
promise  everything." 

But  there  was  no  response.  Lucy  lay,  limp  and 
white-lipped,  her  head  lolling  back  from  the  support  of 
her  daughter's  arm.  Her  strength  was  exhausted  to 
the  last  drop.  She  was  unconscious. 

The  wild  figure  of  Mariposa  at  the  kitchen  door  sum 
moned  Mrs.  Brown.  Lucy  was  not  dead,  but  dying. 
A  few  moments  later  Mariposa  found  herself  rushing 
hatless  through  the  rain  for  the  doctor,  and  then  again, 
in  what  seemed  a  few  more  minutes,  standing,  soaked 
and  breathless,  by  her  mother's  side.  She  sat  there 
throughout  the  night,'  holding  the  limp  hand  and 
watching  for  a  glimmer  of  consciousness  in  the  half- 
shut  eyes. 

It  never  came.  There  was  no  rally  from  the  collapse 
which  followed  the  mother's  confession.  She  had  lived 
till  this  was  done.  Then,  having  accomplished  the 
great  action  of  her  life,  she  had  loosed  her  hold  and  let 
go.  Once,  Mrs.  Brown  being  absent,  Mariposa  had 
leaned  down  on  the  pillow  and  passionately  reiterated 
the  assurance  that  she  would  give  the  promise  Lucy 
had  asked.  There  was  a  slight  quiver  of  animation  in 
the  dying  woman's  face  and  she  opened  her  eyes  as  if 
startled,  but  made  no  other  sign  of  having  heard  or  un 
derstood.  But  Mariposa  knew  that  she  had  promised. 


i;o  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

On  the  evening  of  the  day  after  her  confession  Lucy 
died,  slipping  away  quietly  as  if  in  sleep.  The  death 
of  the  simple  and  unknown  lady  made  no  ripple  on  the 
surface  of  the  city's  life.  Mrs.  Willers  and  a  neighbor 
or  two  were  Mariposa's  sole  visitors,  and  the  only 
flowers  contributed  to  Lucy's  coffin  were  those  sent  by 
the  newspaper  woman  and  Barry  Essex.  The  after 
noon  of  the  day  on  which  her  mother's  death  was  an 
nounced,  Mariposa  received  a  package  from  Jake 
Shackleton.  With  it  came  a  short  note  of  condolence, 
and  the  offer,  kindly  and  simply  worded,  of  the  small 
sum  of  money  contained  in  the  package,  which,  it  was 
hoped,  Miss  Moreau,  for  the  sake  of  the  writer's  early 
acquaintance  with  her  parents  and  interest  in  herself, 
would  accept.  The  packet  contained  five  hundred  dol 
lars  in  coin. 

Mariposa's  face  flamed.  The  money  fell  through  her 
fingers  and  rolled  about  on  the  floor.  She  would  have 
liked  to  take  it,  piece  by  piece,  and  throw  it  through 
the  window,  into  the  mud  of  the  street.  She  felt  that 
her  horror  of  Shackleton  augmented  with  every  pass 
ing  moment,  gripped  her  deeper  with  every  memory  of 
her  mother's  words,  and  every  moment's  perusal  of  the 
calm,  dead  face  in  its  surrounding  flowers. 

But  her  promise  had  been  given.  She  picked  up  the 
money  and  put  it  away.  Her  promise  had  been  given. 
Already  she  was  beginning  dimly  to  realize  that  it 
would  bind  and  cramp  her  for  the  rest  of  her  life.  She 
was  too  benumbed  now  fully  to  grasp  its  meaning,  but 
she  felt  feebly  that  she  would  be  its  slave  as  long  as  he 
or  she  lived.  But  she  had  given  it. 

The  money  lay  untouched  throughout  the  next  few 


THE   REVELATION  171 

days,  Lucy's  simple  funeral  ceremonies  being  paid  for 
with  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the  diamond  brooch, 
which  Moreau  had  given  her  in  the  early  days  of  their 
happiness. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ITS   EFFECT 

"Flower  o'  the  peach, 
Death  for  us  all,  and  his  own  life  for  each." 

-^BROWNING. 

Jake  Shackleton  did  not  come  up  from  San  Mateo  on 
Monday,  as  Mrs.  Willers  expected,  and  the  first  in 
timation  he  had  of  Lucy's  death  was  the  short  notice  in 
the  paper. 

He  had  come  down  the  stairs  early  on  Tuesday 
morning  into  the  wide  hall,  with  its  doors  thrown  open 
to  the  fragrant  air.  With  the  paper  in  his  hand,  he 
stood  on  the  balcony  looking  about  and  inhaling  the 
freshness  of  the  morning.  The  rain  had  washed  the 
country  clean  of  every  fleck  of  dust,  burnished  every 
leaf,  and  had  called  into  being  blossoms  that  had  been 
awaiting  its  summons. 

From  beneath  the  shade  made  by  the  long,  gnarled 
limbs  of  the  live  oaks,  the  perfume  of  the  violets  rose 
delicately,  their  crowding  clusters  of  leaves  a  clear 
green  against  the  base  of  the  hoary  trunks.  The  air 
that  drifted  in  from  the  idle,  yellow  fields  beyond  was 
impregnated  with  the  breath  of  the  tar-weed — one  of 
the  most  pungent  and  impassioned  odors  Nature  has 
manufactured  in  her  vast  laboratory,  characteristic 

172 


ITS   EFFECT  173 

scent  to  rise  from  the  dry,  yet  fecund  grass-lands  of 
California.  In  the  perfect,  crystalline  stillness  these 
mingled  perfumes  rose  like  incense  to  the  new  day. 

Shackleton  looked  about  him,  the  paper  in  his  hand. 
He  had  little  love  for  Nature,  but  the  tranquil-scented 
freshness  of  the  hour  wrung  its  tribute  of  admiration 
from  him.  What  an  irony  that  the  one  child  he  had, 
worth  having  gained  all  this  for,  should  be  denied,  it. 
Mariposa,  thus  framed,  would  have  added  the  last 
touch  to  the  triumphs  of  his  life. 

With  an  exclamation  of  impatience  he  sat  down  on 
the  top  step,  and  opening  the  paper,  ran  his  glance 
down  its  columns.  He  had  been  looking  over  it  for 
several  minutes  before  the  death  notice  of  Lucy  struck 
his  eye.  It  took  away  his  breath.  He  read  it  again,  at 
first  not  crediting  it.  He  was  entirely  unprepared, 
having  merely  thought  of  Lucy  as  "delicate."  Now  she 
was  dead. 

He  dropped  the  paper  on  his  knee  and  sat  staring  out 
into  the  garden.  The  news  was  more  of  a  shock  than 
he  could  have  imagined  it  would  be.  Was  it  the  lately 
roused  pride  in  his  child  that  had  reawakened  some 
old  tenderness  for  the  mother?  Or  was  it  that  the 
thought  of  Lucy,  dead,  called  back  memories  of  that 
shameful  past? 

He  sat,  staring,  till  a  step  on  the  balcony  roused  him, 
and  turning,  he  saw  his  son.  Win,  though  only  twen 
ty-three,  was  of  the  order  of  beings  who  do  not  look 
well  in  the  morning.  He  was  slightly  built  and  thin 
and  had  a  rasped,  pink  appearance,  as  though  he  felt 
cold.  Stories  were  abroad  that  Win  was  dissipated, 
stories,  by  the  way,  that  were  largely  manufactured  by 


174  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

himself.  He  was  at  that  age  when  a  reputation  for 
deviltry  has  its  attractions.  In  fact,  he  was  amiable, 
gentle  and  far  too  lacking  in  spirit  to  be  the  desperate 
rake  he  liked  to  represent  himself.  He  had  a  whole 
some  fear  of  his  father,  whose  impatience  against  him 
was  not  concealed  by  surface  politeness  as  in  Maud's 
case. 

Standing  with  his  hands  in  his  trousers'  pockets,  his 
chest  hollowed,  his  red-rimmed  eyes  half  shut  behind 
the  pince-nez  he  always  wore,  and  his  slight  mustache 
not  sufficient  to  hide  a  smile,  the  foolishness  of  which 
rose  from  embarrassment,  he  was  not  a  son  to  fill  a 
father's  heart  with  pride. 

"Howdy,  Governor,"  he  said,  trying  to  be  easy ;  then, 
seeing  the  paper  in  his  father's  hand,  folded  back  at  the 
death  notices,  "anybody  new  born,  dead,  or  married 
this  morning?" 

His  voice  rasped  unbearably  on  his  father's  mood. 
The  older  man  gave  him  a  look  over  his  shoulder,  with 
a  face  that  made  the  boy  quail. 

"Get  away,"  he  said,  savagely ;  "get  in  the  house  and 
leave  me  alone." 

Win  turned  and  entered  the  house.  The  foolish  smile 
was  still  on  his  lips.  Pride  kept  it  there,  but  at  heart 
he  was  bitterly  wounded. 

At  the  foot  of  the  stairway  he  met  his  mother. 

"You'd  better  not  go  out  there,"  he  said,  with  a 
movement  of  his  head  in  the  direction  of  his  father ; 
"it's  as  much  as  your  life's  worth.  The  old  man'll  bite 
your  nose  off  if  you  do." 

"Is  your  father  cross?"  asked  Bessie. 


ITS    EFFECT  175 

"Cross  ?  He  oughtn't  to  be  let  loose  when  he's  like 
that." 

"Something  in  the  paper  must  have  upset  him,"  said 
Bessie.  "He  was  all  right  this  morning  before  he  came 
down.  Something  on  the  stock  market's  bothered 
him." 

"Maybe  so,"  said  his  son,  with  a  certain  feeling. 
"But  that's  no  reason  why  he  should  speak  to  me  like  a 
dog.  He  goes  too  far  when  he  speaks  to  me  that  way. 
There  isn't  a  servant  in  the  house  would  stand  it." 

He  balanced  back  and  forth  on  his  toes  and  heels, 
looking  down,  his  face  flushed.  It  would  have  been 
hard  to  say — such  was  the  characterless  insignificance 
of  his  appearance — whether  he  was  really  hurt,  as  a 
man  would  be  in  his  heart  and  his  pride,  or  only  mo 
mentarily  stung  by  a  scornful  word. 

Bessie  passed  him  and  went  out  on  the  balcony.  Her 
husband  was  still  sitting  on  the  steps,  the  paper  in  his 
hand. 

"What  is  it,  Jake?"  she  said.  "Win  says  you're 
cross.  Something  gone  wrong?" 

"Lucy's  dead,"  he  answered,  rising  to  his  feet  and 
handing  her  the  paper. 

She  paled  a  little  as  she  read  the  notice.  Then,  rais 
ing  her  eyes,  they  met  his.  In  this  look  was  their 
knowledge  of  the  secret  that  both  had  struggled  to 
keep,  and  that  now,  at  last,  was  theirs. 

For  the  second  time  in  a  half-year,  Death  had 
stepped  in  and  claimed  one  of  the  four  whose  lives 
had  touched  so  briefly  and  so  momentously  twenty- 
five  years  before. 


176  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Poor  Lucy !"  said  Bessie,  in  a  low  voice.  "But  they 
say  she  was  very  happy  with  Moreau.  You  can  do 
something  for  your — for  the  girl  now." 

"Yes,"  he  said ;  "I'll  think  it  over.  I  won't  be  down 
to  breakfast.  Send  up  some  coffee." 

He  went  upstairs  and  locked  himself  in  his  library. 
He  could  not  understand  why  the  news  had  affected 
him  so  deeply.  It  seemed  to  make  him  feel  sick.  He 
did  not  tell  Bessie  that  he  had  gone  upstairs  because 
he  felt  too  ill  and  shaken  to  see  any  one. 

All  morning  he  sat  in  the  library,  with  frowning 
brows,  thinking.  At  noon  he  took  the  train  for  the 
city  and,  soon  after  its  arrival,  despatched  to  Mari- 
posa  the  five  hundred  dollars.  He  had  no  doubt  of  her 
accepting  it,  as  it  never  crossed  his  mind  that  Lucy,  at 
the  last  moment,  might  have  told. 

The  days  that  followed  her  mother's  funeral  passed 
to  Mariposa  like  a  series  of  gray  dreams,  dreadful, 
with  an  unfamiliar  sense  of  wretchedness.  The  pre 
occupation  of  her  mother's  illness  was  gone.  There  were 
idle  hours,  when  she  sat  in  her  rooms  and  tried  to  real 
ize  the  full  meaning  of  Lucy's  last  words.  She  would 
sit  motionless,  staring  before  her,  her  heart  feeling 
shriveled  in  her  breast.  Her  life  seemed  broken  to 
pieces.  She  shrank  from  the  future,  with  the  impos 
sibilities  she  had  pledged  herself  to.  And  the  strength 
and  inspiration  of  the  beautiful  past  were  gone.  All 
the  memories  of  that  happy  childhood  and  young 
maidenhood  were  blasted.  It  was  natural  that  the 
shock  and  the  subsequent  brooding  should  make  her 
view  of  the  subject  morbid.  The  father  that  she  had 


ITS   EFFECT  177 

grown  up  to  regard  with  reverential  tenderness,  had 
not  been  hers.  The  mother,  who  had  been  a  cherished 
idol,  had  hidden  a  dark  secret.  And  she,  herself,  was 
an  outsider  from  the  home  she  had  so  deeply  loved — 
child  of  a  brutal  and  tyrannical  father — originally 
adopted  and  cared  for  out  of  pity. 

It  was  a  crucial  period  in  her  life.  Old  ideals  were 
gone,  and  new  ones  not  yet  formed.  There  seemed 
only  ruins  about  her,  and  amid  these  she  sought  for 
something  to  cling  to,  and  believe  in.  With  secret  pas 
sion  she  nursed  the  thought  of  Essex — all  she  had  left 
that  had  not  been  swept  away  in  the  deluge  of  this 
past  week. 

Fortunately  for  her,  the  business  calls  of  the  life  of 
a  woman  left  penniless  shook  her  from  her  state  of 
brooding  idleness.  The  cottage  was  hers  for  a  month 
longer,  and  despite  the  impoverished  condition  of  the 
widow,  there  was  a  fair  amount  of  furniture  still  left 
in  it  that  was  sufficiently  valuable  to  be  a  bait  to  the 
larger  dealers.  Mariposa  found  her  days  varied  by 
contentions  with  men,  who  came  to  stare  at  the  great 
red  lacquer  cabinet  and  investigate  the  interior  con 
dition  of  the  marquetry  sideboard.  When  the  month 
was  up  she  was  to  move  to  a  small  boarding-house, 
kept  by  Spaniards  called  Garcia,  that  Mrs.  Willers,  in 
her  varying  course,  included  among  her  habitats.  The 
Garcias  would  not  object  to  her  piano  and  practising, 
and  it  was  amazingly  cheap.  Mrs.  Willers  herself  had 
lived  there  in  one  of  her  periods  of  eclipse,  and  knew 
them  to  be  respectable  denizens  of  a  somewhat  bat 
tered  Bohemia. 

"But  you're  going  to  be  a  Bohemian  yourself,  being 


178  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

a  musical  genius,"  she  said  cheerfully.  "So  you  won't 
mind  that." 

Mariposa  did  not  think  she  would  mind.  In  the 
chaotic  dimness  of  the  dismantled  front  parlor  she 
looked  like  a  listless  goddess  who  would  not  mind 
anything. 

Mrs.  Willers  thought  her  state  of  dreary  apathy 
curious  and  spoke  of  it  to  Shackleton,  whom  she  now 
recognized  as  the  girl's  acknowledged  guardian.  He 
had  listened  to  her  account  of  Mariposa's  broken  con 
dition  with  expressionless  attention. 

"Isn't  it  natural,  all  things  considered,  that  a  girl 
should  be  broken-hearted  over  the  death  of  a  devoted 
mother?  And,  as  I  understand  it,  Miss  Moreau  is 
absolutely  alone.  She  has  no  relatives  anywhere.  It's 
a  pretty  bleak  outlook." 

"That's  true.  I  never  saw  a  girl  left  so  without 
connections.  But  she  worries  me.  She's  so  silent,  and 
dull,  and  unlike  herself.  Of  course,  it's  been  a  terrible 
blow.  I'd  have  thought  she'd  been  more  prepared." 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  stroking  his  short  beard 
with  his  lean,  heavily-veined  hand.  It  amused  him  to 
see  the  way  Mrs.  Willers  was  quietly  pushing  him  into 
the  position  of  the  girl's  sponsor.  And  at  the  same 
time  it  heightened  his  opinion  of  her  as  a  woman  of 
capacity  and  heart.  She  would  be  an  ideal  chaperone 
and  companion  for  his  unprotected  daughter. 

"When  she  feels  better,"  he  said,  "I  wish  you'd 
bring  her  down  here  again.  Don't  bother  her  until 
she  feels  equal  to  it.  But  I  want  to  talk  to  her  about 
Lepine's  ideas  for  her.  I  saw  him  again  and  he  gave 
me  a  lot  of  information  about  Paris  and  teachers  and 


ITS   EFFECT  179 

all  the  rest  of  it.  Before  we  make  any  definite  ar 
rangements  I'll  have  to  see  her  and  talk  it  all  over." 

Mrs.  Willers  went  back  triumphant  to  Mariposa  to 
report  this  conversation.  It  really  seemed  to  clinch 
matters.  The  Bonanza  King  had  instituted  himself 
her  guardian  and  backer.  It  meant  fortune  for  Mari 
posa  Moreau,  the  penniless  orphan. 

To  her  intense  surprise,  Mariposa  listened  to  her 
with  a  flushed  and  frowning  face  of  indignation. 

"I  won't  go,"  she  said,  with  sudden  violence. 

"But,  my  dear!"  expostulated  Mrs.  Willers,  "your 
whole  future  depends  on  it.  With  such  an  influence 
to  back  you  as  that,  your  fortune's  made.  And  listen 
to  me,  honey,  for  I  know, — it's  not  an  'easy  job  for  a 
woman  to  get  on  who's  alone  and  as  good-looking  as 
you  are." 

"I  won't  go,"  repeated  Mariposa,  angry  and  obsti 
nate. 

"But  why  not,  for  goodness'  sake  ?" — in  blank  amaze. 
"What's  come  over  you?  Is  it  your  mourning?  You 
know  your  mother's  the  last  person  who'd  want  you  to 
sit  indoors,  moping  like  a  snail  in  a  shell,  when  your 
future  was  waiting  for  you  outside  the  door." 

Her  promise  rose  up  before  Mariposa's  mental  vision 
and  checked  the  angry  reiteration  that  was  on  her  lips. 
She  turned  away,  suddenly,  tremulous  and  pale. 

"Don't  talk  about  it  any  more,"  she  answered,  "but 
I  can't  go  now.  Perhaps  later  on,  but  not  now — I  can't 
go  now." 

Mrs.  Willers  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  was  wise 
ly  silent.  Mariposa's  grief  was  making  her  unreason 
able,  that  was  all.  To  Shackleton  she  merely  said  that 


i8o  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

the  girl  was  too  ill  and  overwrought  to  see  any  one 
just  yet.  As  soon  as  she  was  herself  again  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers  would  bring  her  to  The  Trumpet  office  for  the  in 
terview  that  was  to  be  the  opening  of  the  new  era. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HOW   COULD   HE 

"Man  is  the  hunter;  woman  is  his  game, 
The  sleek  and  shining  creatures  of  the  chase. 
We  hunt  them  for  the  beauty  of  their  skins; 

They  love  us  for  it,  and  we  ride  them  down." 

— TENNYSON. 

The  month  of  Mariposa's  tenantry  of  the  cottage 
was  up.  It  was  the  last  evening  there,  and  she  sat 
crouched  over  a  handful  of  fire  that  burned  in  the 
front  parlor  grate.  The  room  was  half  empty,  all  the 
superfluous  furniture  having  been  taken  that  morning 
by  a  Jewish  second-hand  dealer.  In  one  corner  stood 
huddled  such  relics  as  she  had  chosen  to  keep,  and 
which  would  be  borne  away  on  the  morrow  to  the 
Garcias'  boarding-house.  The  marquetry  sideboard 
was  gone.  It  had  been  sold  to  a  Sutter  Street  dealer 
for  twenty-five  dollars.  The  red  lacquer  cabinet,  though 
no  longer  hers,  still  remained.  It,  too,  would  be  car 
ried  away  to-morrow  morning  by  its  new  owners.  She 
looked  at  it  with  melancholy  glances  as  the  fire-light 
found  and  lost  its  golden  traceries  and  sent  sudden 
quivering  gleams  along  its  scarlet  doors.  The  fire  was 
less  a  luxury  than  an  economy,  to  burn  the  last  pieces 
of  coal  in  the  bin. 

Bending  over  the  dancing  flames,  Mariposa  held  her 
181 


i8a  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

hands  open  to  the  blaze,  absently  looking  at  their  backs. 
They  were  fine,  capable  hands,  large  and  white,  with 
strong  wrists  and  a  forearm  so  round  that  its  swell 
began  half-way  between  elbow  and  wrist-bone.  Pleased 
by  the  warmth  that  soothed  the  chill  always  induced 
by  a  sojourn  in  the  front  parlor,  she  pulled  up  her 
sleeves  and  watched  the  gleam  of  the  fire  turn  the 
white  skin  red.  She  was  sitting  thus,  when  a  ring  at 
the  bell  made  her  start  and  hurriedly  push  her  sleeves 
down.  Her  visitors  were  so  few  that  she  was  almost 
certain  of  the  identity  of  this  one.  For  all  the  griefs 
of  the  last  month  she  was  yet  a  woman.  She  sprang 
to  her  feet,  and  as  the  steps  of  the  servant  sounded  in 
the  hall,  ran  to  the  large  mirror  in  the  corner  and 
patted  and  pulled  her  hair  to  the  style  she  thought  most 
becoming. 

She  had  turned  from  this  and  was  standing  by  the 
fire  when  Essex  entered.  He  had  seen  her  once  since 
her  mother's  death,  but  she  had  then  been  so  pre 
occupied  with  grief  that,  with  a  selfish  man's  hatred 
of  all  unpleasant  things,  he  had  left  her  as  soon  as 
possible.  To-night  he  saw  that  she  was  recovering, 
that,  physically  at  least,  she  was  herself  again.  But 
he  was  struck,  almost  as  soon  as  his  eye  fell  on  her,  by 
a  change  in  her.  Some  influence  had  been  at  work  to 
effect  a  subtile  and  curious  development  in  her.  The 
simplicity,  the  something  childish  and  winning  that 
had  always  seemed  so  inconsistent  with  her  stately  ap 
pearance,  was  gone.  Mariposa  was  coming  to  herself. 
His  heart  quickened  its  beats  as  he  realized  she  was 
handsomer,  richer  by  some  inward  growth,  more  a 
woman  than  she  had  been  a  month  ago. 


HOW   COULD   HE  183 

He  took  a  seat  at  the  other  side  of  the  fire,  and  the 
tentative  conversation  of  commonplaces  occupied  them 
for  a  few  moments.  The  silence  that  had  held  her  in 
a  spell  of  dead  dejection  on  his  former  visit  was 
broken.  She  seemed  more  than  usually  talkative.  In 
fact,  Mariposa  was  beginning  to  feel  the  reaction  from 
the  life  of  grief  and  seclusion  of  the  last  month.  She 
was  violently  ashamed  of  the  sense  of  elation  that  had 
surged  up  in  her  at  the  sound  of  Essex's  voice.  She 
struggled  to  hide  it,  but  it  lit  a  light  in  her  eyes,  called 
a  color  to  her  cheeks  that  she  could  not  conceal.  The 
presence  of  her  lover  affected  her  with  a  sort  of  em 
barrassed  exultation  that  she  had  never  experienced 
before.  To  hide  it  she  talked  rapidly,  looking  into  the 
fire,  to  which  she  still  held  out  her  hands. 

Essex,  from  the  other  side  of  the  hearth,  watched 
her.  He  saw  his  arrival  had  made  her  nervous,  and 
it  only  augmented  the  sentiment  that  had  been  growing 
in  him  for  months. 

She  began  to  tell  him  of  her  move. 

"I'm  going  to-morrow,  in  the  afternoon.  It's  a 
queer  place,  an  old  house  on  Hyde  Street,  with  a  big 
pepper-tree,  the  biggest  in  the  city,  they  say,  growing 
in  the  front  garden.  It  was  once  quite  a  fine  house, 
long  ago  in  the  early  days,  and  was  built  by  these 
people,  the  Garcias,  when  they  still  had  money.  Then 
they  lost  it  all,  and  now  the  old  lady  and  her  son's 
wife  take  a  few  people,  as  the  house  is  too  big  for  them 
and  they  are  so  poor.  Young  Mrs.  Garcia  is  a  widow. 
Her  husband  was  killed  in  the  mines  by  a  blast." 

"It  sounds  picturesque.    Do  they  speak  English  ?" 


i84  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"The  senora,  that's  the  old  lady,  doesn't.  She  has 
lived  here  since  before  the  Gringo  came,  but  she  can't 
speak  any  English  at  all.  The  daughter-in-law  is  an 
American,  a  Southerner.  She  looked  very  untidy  the 
day  I  went  there.  I'm  afraid  I'll  be  homesick.  You'll 
come  to  see  me  sometimes,  won't  you  ?" 

There  was  no  coquetry  in  the  remark.  Her  dread  of 
loneliness  was  all  that  spoke. 

Essex  met  her  eyes,  dark  and  wistful,  and  nodded 
without  speaking. 

She  looked  back  at  the  fire  and  again  spread  her 
hands  to  it,  palms  out. 

"It's — it's — rather  a  dilapidated  sort  of  place,"  she 
continued  after  a  moment's  pause,  "but  perhaps  I'll 
get  used  to  it." 

There  was  distinct  pleading  for  confirmation  in  this. 
Her  voice  was  slightly  husky.  Essex,  however,  with 
that  perversity  which  marked  all  his  treatment  of  her, 
said: 

"Do  you  think  you  will  ?  It's  difficult  for  a  woman 
to  accommodate  herself  to  such  changed  conditions — 
I  mean  a  woman  of  refinement,  like  you." 

She  continued  feebly  to  make  her  stand. 

"But  my  conditions  have  changed  so  much  in  the  last 
two  or  three  years.  I  ought  to  be  used  to  it ;  it's  not 
as  if  it  was  the  first  time.  Before  my  father  got  sick 
we  were  so  comfortable.  We  were  rich  and  had  quan 
tities  of  beautiful  things  like  that  cabinet.  And  as  they 
have  gone,  one  by  one,  so  we  have  come  down  bit  by 
bit,  till  I  am  left  like  this." 

She  made  a  gesture  to  include  the  empty  room  and 
turned  back  to  the  fire. 


HOW   COULD   HE  185 

"But  you  won't  stay  like  this,"  he  said,  throwing  a 
glance  over  the  bare  walls. 

"Don't  you  think  so?"  she  said,  looking  into  the 
fire  with  dejected  eyes.  "You're  kind  to  try  to  cheer 
me  up." 

"You  can  be  happy,  protected  and  cared  for,  with 
your  life  full  of  sunshine  and  joy — " 

He  stopped.  Every  step  he  took  was  of  moment, 
and  he  was  not  the  type  of  man  to  forgive  himself  a 
mistake.  Mariposa  was  looking  at  him,  frowning 
slightly. 

"How  do  you  mean?'  she  said.     "With  my  voice?" 

"No,"  he  answered,  in  a  tone  that  suddenly  thrilled 
with  meaning,  "with  me." 

That  quivering  pause  which  falls  between  a  man  and 
woman  when  the  words  that  will  link  or  sever  them  for 
life  are  to  be  spoken,  held  the  room.  Mariposa  felt 
the  terrified  desire  to  arrest  the  coming  words  that  is 
the  maiden's  last  instinctive  stand  for  her  liberty.  But 
her  brain  was  confused,  and  her  heart  beat  like  a  ham 
mer. 

"With  me,"  Essex  repeated,  as  the  pause  grew  un 
bearable.  "Is  there  no  happiness  for  you  in  that 
thought  ?" 

She  made  no  answer,  and  suddenly  he  moved  his 
chair  close  to  her  side.  She  felt  his  eyes  fastened  on 
her  and  kept  hers  on  the  fire.  Her  other  offers  of  mar 
riage  had  not  been  accomplished  with  this  stifling 
sense  of  discomfort. 

"I've  thought,"  his  deep  voice  went  on,  "that  you 
cared  for  me — a  little.  I've  watched,  I've  desponded. 


186  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

But  lately — lately — "  he  leaned  toward  her  and  lowered 
his  voice — "I've  hoped." 

She  still  made  no  answer.  It  seemed  to  her  none 
was  necessary  or  possible. 

"Do  you  care  ?"  he  said  softly. 

She  breathed  a  "yes"  that  only  the  ear  of  love  could 
have  heard. 

"Mariposa,  dearest,  do  you  mean  it?"  He  leaned 
over  her  and  laid  his  hand  on  hers.  His  voice  was 
husky  and  his  hand  trembling.  To  the  extent  that 
was  in  him  he  loved  this  woman. 

"Do  you  love  me  ?"  he  whispered. 

The  "yes"  was  even  fainter  this  time.  He  raised  the 
hand  he  held  to  his  breast  and  tried  to  draw  her  into 
his  arms. 

She  resisted,  and  turned  on  him  a  pale  face,  where 
emotions,  never  stirred  before,  were  quivering.  She 
was  moved  to  the  bottom  of  her  soul.  Something  in 
her  face  made  him  shrink  a  little.  With  her  hand 
against  his  breast  she  gave  him  the  beautiful  look  of 
a  woman's  first  sense  of  her  surrender.  He  stifled  the 
sudden  twinge  of  his  conscience  and  again  tried  to 
draw  her  close  to  him.  But  she  held  him  off  with  the 
hand  on  his  breast  and  said — as  thousands  of  girls  say 
every  year : 

"Do  you  really  love  me  ?" 

"More  than  the  whole  world,"  he  answered  glibly, 
but  with  the  roughened  voice  of  real  feeling. 

"Why?"  she  said  with  a  tremulous  smile,  "why 
should  you  ?" 

"Because  you  are  you." 


HOW   COULD   HE  187 

"But  I'm  just  a  small  insignificant  person  here, 
without  any  relations,  and  poor,  so  poor." 

"Those  things  don't  matter  when  a  man  loves  a 
woman.  It's  you  I  want,  not  anything  you  might  have 
or  might  be." 

"But  you're  so  clever  and  have  lived  everywhere 
and  seen  everything,  and  I'm  so — so  countrified  and 
stupid." 

"You're  Mariposa.     That's  enough  for  me." 

"All  I  can  bring  you  for  my  portion  is  my  heart." 

"And  that's  all  I  want." 

"You  love  me  enough  to  marry  me?" 

His  eyes  that  had  been  looking  ardently  into  her  face, 
shifted. 

"I  love  you  enough  to  be  a  fool  about  you.  Does 
that  please  you  ?" 

Her  murmured  answer  was  lost  in  the  first  kiss  of 
love  that  had  ever  been  pressed  on  her  lips.  She  drew 
back  from  it,  pale  and  thrilled,  not  abashed,  but  look 
ing  at  her  lover  with  eyes  before  which  his  drooped. 
It  was  a  sacred  moment  to  her. 

"How  wonderful,"  she  whispered,  "that  you  should 
care  for  me." 

"It  would  have  been  more  wonderful  if  I  hadn't." 

"And  that  you  came  now,  when  everything  was  so 
dark  and  lonely.  You  don't  know  how  horribly  lonely 
I  felt  this  evening,  thinking  of  leaving  here  to-morrow 
and  going  among  strangers." 

"But  that's  all  over  now.  You  need  never  be  lonely 
again.  I'll  always  be  there  to  take  care  of  you.  We'll 
always  be  together." 


i88  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Don't  you  think  things  often  change  when  they  get 
to  their  very  worst  ?  It  seemed  to  me  to-night  that  I 
was  just  about  to  open  a  door  that  led  into  the  world, 
where  nobody  cared  for  me,  or  knew  me,  or  wanted 
me." 

"One  person  wanted  you,  desperately." 

"And  then,  all  in  a  moment,  my  whole  life  is  changed. 
It's  not  an  hour  ago  that  I  was  sitting  here  looking 
into  the  fire  thinking  how  miserable  I  was,  and  now — " 

"You  are  in  my  arms  I"  he  interrupted,  and  drew 
her  against  him  for  his  kiss.  She  turned  her  face 
away  and  pressed  it  into  his  shoulder,  as  he  held  her 
close,  and  said : 

"We'll  go  to  Europe,  to  Italy — that's  the  country  for 
you,  not  this  raw  Western  town  where  you're  like  some 
exotic  blossom  growing  in  the  sand.  You've  never  seen 
anything  like  it,  with  the  gray  olive  trees  like  smoke 
on  the  hillsides,  and  the  white  walls  of  the  villas 
shining  among  the  cypresses.  We'll  have  a  villa,  and 
we  can  walk  on  the  terrace  in  the  evening  and  look 
down  on  the  valley  of  the  Arno.  It's  the  place  for 
lovers,  and  we're  going  to  be  lovers,  Mariposa." 

Still  she  did  not  understand,  and  said  happily : 

"Yes,  true  lovers  for  always." 

"And  then  we'll  go  to  France,  and  we'll  see  Paris — 
all  the  great  squares  with  the  lights  twinkling,  and 
the  Rue  de  Rivoli  with  gas  lamps  strung  along  it  like 
diamonds  on  a  thread.  And  the  river — it's  black  at 
night  with  the  bridges  arching  over  it,  and  the  lamps 
stabbing  down  into  the  water  with  long  golden  zigzags. 
We'll  go  to  the  theaters  and  to  the  opera,  and  you'll 
be  the  handsomest  woman  there.  And  we'll  drive 


HOW   COULD   HE  189 

home  in  an  open  carriage  under  the  starlight,  not  say 
ing  much,  because  we'll  be  so  happy." 

"And  shall  I  study  singing?" 

"Of  course,  with  the  best  masters.  You'll  be  a  great 
prima  donna  some  day." 

"And  I  sha'n't  have  to  be  sent  by  Mr.  Shackleton? 
Oh,  I  shall  be  so  glad  to  tell  him  I'm  going  with  you." 

Essex  started — looked  at  her  frowning. 

"But  you  mustn't  do  that,"  he  said  with  a  sudden, 
authoritative  change  of  key. 

"Why  not?"  she  answered.  "You  know  he  was  to 
send  me.  I  promised  my  mother  I  would  let  him  take 
care  of  me.  But  now  that  I'm  going  to  be  married, 
my — my — husband  will  take  care  of  me." 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  girl's  charming  embarrass 
ment  at  the  first  fitting  of  this  word  to  any  breathing 
man,  and  blushed  deeply  and  beautifully.  Essex  felt 
he  must  disillusion  her.  He  looked  into  the  fire. 

"Married,"  he  said  slowly.  "Well,  of  course,  if  we 
were  married — " 

He  stopped,  gave  her  a  lightning  side-glance.  She 
was  smiling. 

"Well,  of  course  we'll  be  married,"  she  said.  "How 
could  we  go  to  Europe  unless  we  were  ?" 

Still  avoiding  her  eyes,  which  he  knew  were  fixed 
on  him  in  smiling  inquiry,  he  said  in  a  lowered  voice : 

"Oh,  yes,  we  could." 

"How— I  don't  understand?" 

For  the  first  time  there  was  a  faint  note  of  uneasiness 
in  her  voice.  Though  his  glance  was  still  bent  on  the 
fire,  he  knew  that  she  was  no  longer  smiling. 

"We  could  go  easily,  without  making  any  talk  or 


190  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

fuss.  Of  course  we  could  not  leave  here  together. 
I'd  meet  you  in  Chicago  or  New  York." 

He  heard  her  dress  rustle  as  she  instinctively  drew 
away  from  him. 

"Meet  me  in  New  York  or  Chicago?"  she  repeated. 
"But  why  meet  me  there?  I  don't  understand.  Why 
not  be  married  here  ?" 

He  turned  toward  her  and  threw  up  his  head  as  a 
person  does  who  is  going  to  speak  emphatically  and  at 
length.  Only  in  raising  his  head  his  eyes  remained  on 
the  ground. 

"My  dear  girl,"  he  said  in  a  suave  tone,  "you've 
lived  all  your  life  in  these  small,  half-civilized  Cali 
fornia  towns,  and  there  are  many  things  about  life 
in  larger  and  more  advanced  communities  you  don't 
understand.  I've  just  told  you  I  loved  you,  and  you 
know  that  your  welfare  is  of  more  moment  to  me  than 
anything  in  the  world.  I  would  give  my  heart's  blood 
to  make  you  happy.  But  I  am  just  now  hardly  in  a 
position  to  marry.  You  must  understand  that." 

It  was  said.  Mariposa  gave  a  low  exclamation  and 
rose  to  her  feet.  He  rose,  too,  feeling  angry  with 
her  that  she  had  forced  him  to  this  banal  explanation. 
There  were  times  when  her  stupidity  could  be  exasper 
ating. 

She  was  very  pale,  her  eyes  dark,  her  nostrils  ex 
panded.  On  her  face  was  an  expression  of  pitiful  be 
wilderment  and  distress. 

"Then — then — you  didn't  want  to  marry  me?"  she 
stammered  with  trembling  lips. 

"Oh,  I  want  to,"  he  said  with  a  propitiatory  shrug. 


HOW   COULD   HE  191 

"Of  course  I  want  to.  But  one  can't  always  do  what 
one  wants.  Under  the  circumstances,  as  I  tell  you, 
marriage  is  impossible." 

She  could  say  nothing  for  a  moment,  the  first 
stunned  moment  of  comprehension.  Then  she  said  in 
a  low  voice,  still  with  her  senses  scattered,  "And  I 
thought  you  meant  it  all." 

"Meant  what?  that  I  love  you?  Don't  you  trust  me? 
Don't  you  believe  me?  You  must  acknowledge  I  un 
derstand  life  better  than  you  do." 

She  looked  at  him  straight  in  the  eyes.  The  pain 
and  bewilderment  had  left  her  face,  leaving  it  white 
and  tense.  He  realized  that  she  was  not  going  to 
weep  and  make  moan — the  wound  had  gone  deeper. 
He  had  stabbed  her  to  the  heart. 

"You're  right,"  she  said.  "I  don't  understand  about 
life  as  you  do.  I  didn't  understand  that  a  man  could 
talk  to  a  woman  as  you  have  done  to  me  and  then 
strike  her  such  a  blow.  It's  too  new  to  me  to  learn 
quickly.  I — I — can't — understand  yet.  I  can't  say 
anything  to  you,  only  that  I  don't  ever  want  to  see 
you,  or  hear  you,  or  think  of  you  again." 

"My  dearest  girl,"  he  said,  going  a  step  toward  her, 
"don't  be  so  severe.  You're  like  a  tragedy  queen. 
Now,  what  have  I  done  ?" 

"I  didn't  think  that  a  man  could  have  the  heart 
to  wound  any  woman  so — any  living  creature,  and  one 
who  cared  as  I  did — "  she  stopped,  unable  to  continue. 

"But  I  wouldn't  wound  you  for  the  world.  Haven't 
I  just  told  you  I  loved  you?" 

"Oh,  go,"  she  said,  backing  away  from  him.  "Go! 
go  away.  Never  come  near  me  again.  You've  de- 


192  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

based  and  humiliated  me  forever,  and  I've  kissed  you 
and  told  you  I  loved  you.  Why  can't  I  creep  into 
some  corner  and  die?" 

"Mariposa,  my  darling,"  he  said,  raising  his  eye 
brows  with  a  theatrical  air  of  incomprehension,  "what 
is  it?  I'm  quite  at  sea.  You  speak  to  me  as  if  I'd 
done  you  a  wrong,  and  all  I've  done  is  to  offer  you  my 
deepest  devotion.  Does  that  offend  you?" 

"Yes,  horribly — horribly !"  she  cried  furiously.  "Go 
— go  out  of  my  sight.  If  you've  got  any  manliness  or 
decency  left,  go — I  can't  bear  any  more." 

She  pressed  her  hands  on  her  face  and  turned  from 
him. 

"Oh,  don't  do  that,"  he  said  tenderly,  approaching 
her.  "Does  my  love  make  you  unhappy  ?  A  half -hour 
ago  it  was  not  like  this." 

He  suddenly,  but  gently,  attempted  to  take  her  in 
his  arms.  Though  she  did  not  see  she  felt  his  touch, 
and  with  a  cry  of  horror  tore  herself  away,  rushed 
past  him  into  the  adjoining  room,  and  from  that  into 
her  bedroom  beyond.  The  bang  of  the  closing  door 
fell  coldly  upon  Essex's  ear. 

He  stood  for  a  moment  listening  and  considering. 
He  had  a  fancy  that  she  might  come  back.  The  house 
was  absolutely  silent.  Then,  no  sound  breaking  its 
stillness,  no  creak  of  an  opening  door  echoing  through 
its  bare  emptiness,  he  walked  out  into  the  hall,  put 
on  his  hat  and  overcoat  and  let  himself  out.  He  was 
angry  and  disgusted.  In  his  thoughts  he  inveighed 
against  Mariposa's  stupidity.  The  unfortunately  down 
right  explanation  had  aroused  her  wrath,  and  he  did 
not  know  how  deep  that  might  be.  Only  as  he  recalled 


HOW   COULD   HE  193 

her  ordering  him  from  the  room  he  realized  that  it  was 
not  the  fictitious  rage  he  had  seen  before  and  under 
stood. 

Mariposa  stood  on  the  inside  of  her  room  door,  hold 
ing  the  knob  and  trying  to  suppress  her  breathing  that 
she  might  hear  clearly.  She  heard  his  steps,  echoing 
on  the  bare  floor  with  curious  distinctness.  They  were 
slow  at  first ;  then  there  was  decision  in  them  ;  then  the 
hall  door  banged.  She  leaned  against  the  panel,  her 
teeth  pressed  on  her  underlip,  her  head  bowed  on  her 
breast. 

"Oh,  how  could  he?  how  could  he?"  she  whis 
pered. 

A  tempest  of  anguish  shook  her.  She  crept  to  the 
bed  and  lay  there,  her  face  buried  in  the  pillow,  mo 
tionless  and  dry-eyed,  till  dawn. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   PALE    HORSE 

"Nicanor  lay  dead  in  his  harness." 

— MACCABEES. 

The  day  broke  overcast  and  damp,  one  of  those  de 
pressing  days  of  still,  soft  grayness  that  usher  in  the 
early  rains,  when  the  air  has  a  heavy  closeness  and  the 
skies  seem  to  sag  with  the  weight  of  moisture  ^that  is 
slow  to  fall. 

There  was  much  to  do  yet  in  the  rifled  cottage. 
Mariposa  rose  to  it  wan  and  heavy-eyed.  The  whirl 
of  her  own  thoughts  during  the  long,  sleepless  night 
had  not  soothed  her  shame  and  distress.  She  found 
herself  working  doggedly,  with  her  heart  like  lead  in 
her  breast,  and  her  mouth  feeling  dry  as  the  scene  of 
the  evening  before  pressed  forward  to  her  attention. 
She  tried  to  keep  it  in  the  background,  but  it  would  not 
down.  Words,  looks,  sentences  kept  welling  up  to  the 
surface  of  her  mind,  coloring  her  cheeks  with  a  miser 
able  crimson,  filling  her  being  with  a  sickness  of  de 
spair.  The  memory  of  the  kisses  followed  her  from 
room  to  room,  and  task  to  task.  She  felt  them  on  her 
lips  as  she  moved  about,  the  lips  that  had  never  known 
the  kiss  of  a  lover,  and  now  seemed  soiled  and  smirched 
forever. 

194 


THE    PALE    HORSE  195 

After  luncheon  the  red  lacquer  cabinet  went  away. 
She  watched  it  off  as  the  last  remnant  of  the  old  life. 
She  felt  strangely  indifferent  to  what  yesterday  she 
thought  would  be  so  many  unbearable  wrenches. 
Finally  nothing  was  left  but  her  own  few  possessions, 
gathered  together  in  a  corner  of  the  front  room — two 
trunks,  a  screen,  a  table,  a  long,  old-fashioned  mirror 
and  some  pictures.  Yesterday  morning  she  had  bar 
gained  with  a  cheap  carter,  picked  up  on  the  street 
corner,  to  take  them  for  a  dollar,  and  now  she  sat  wait 
ing  for  him,  while  the  day  grew  duller  outside,  and 
the  fog  began  to  sift  itself  into  fine  rain. 

The  servant,  who  was  to  close  and  lock  the  cottage, 
begged  her  to  go,  promising  to  see  to  the  shipping  of 
the  last  load.  Mariposa  needed  no  special  urging.  She 
felt  that  an  afternoon  spent  in  that  dim  little  parlor, 
looking  out  through  the  bay  window  at  the  fine  slant 
of  the  rain  would  drive  her  mad.  There  was  no  prom 
ise  of  cheer  at  the  Garcia  boarding-house,  but  it  was, 
at  least,  not  haunted  with  memories. 

A  half-hour  later,  with  the  precious  desk,  containing 
the  marriage  certificates  and  Shackleton's  gift  of 
money,  under  her  arm,  she  was  climbing  the  hills  from 
Sutter  Street  to  that  part  of  Hyde  Street  in  which  the 
Garcia  house  stood.  She  eyed  it  with  deepening  gloom 
as  it  revealed  itself  through  the  thin  rain.  It  was  a 
house  which  even  then  was  getting  old,  standing  back 
from  the  street  on  top  of  a  bank,  which  was  held  in 
place  by  a  wooden  bulk-head,  surmounted  by  a  low 
balustrade.  A  gate  gave  access  through  this,  and  a 
flight  of  rotting  wooden  steps  led  by  zigzags  to  the 
house.  The  lower  story  was  skirted  in  front  by  a 


196  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

balcony,  which,  after  the  fashion  of  early  San  Fran 
cisco  architecture,  was  encased  in  glass.  Its  roof 
above  slanted  up  to  the  two  long  windows  of  the  front 
bedroom.  The  pepper-tree,  of  which  Mariposa  had 
spoken  to  Essex,  was  sufficient  to  tell  of  the  age  of  the 
property  and  to  give  beauty  and  picturesqueness  to  the 
ramshackle  old  place.  It  had  reached  an  unusual 
growth  and  threw  a  fountain  of  drooping  foliage  over 
the  balustrade  and  one  long  limb  upon  the  balcony  roof. 

To-day  it  dripped  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  As 
Mariposa  let  the  gate  bang  the  impact  shook  a  shower 
from  the  tree,  which  fell  on  her  as  she  passed  beneath. 
It  seemed  to  her  a  bad  omen  and  added  to  the  almost 
terrifying  sensation  of  gloom  that  was  invading  her. 

Her  ring  at  the  bell  brought  the  whole  Garcia  family 
to  the  door  and  the  hall.  A  child  of  ten — the  elder  of 
the  young  Mrs.  Garcia's  boys — opened  it.  He  was 
in  the  condition  of  moisture  and  mud  consequent  on 
a  game  of  baseball  on  the  way  home  from  school.  Be 
hind  him  crowded  a  smaller  boy — of  a  cherubic  beauty 
— arrayed  in  a  very  dirty  sailor  blouse,  with  a  still 
dirtier  wide  white  collar,  upon  which  hung  locks  of 
wispy  yellow  hair.  Mrs.  Garcia,  the  younger,  came 
drearily  forward.  She  was  a  thin,  pretty,  slatternly, 
young  woman,  very  baggy  about  the  waist,  and  with 
the  same  wispy  yellow  hair  as  her  son,  which  she  wore 
in  the  popular  bang.  It  had  been  smartly  curled  in 
the  morning,  but  the  damp  had  shown  it  no  respect, 
and  it  hung  down  limply  nearly  into  her  eyes.  Back 
of  her,  in  the  dim  reaches  of  the  hall,  Mariposa  saw  the 
grandmother,  the  strange  old  Spanish  woman,  who 
spoke  no  English.  She  looked  very  old,  and  small, 


THE    PALE   HORSE  197 

and  was  wrinkled  like  a  walnut.  But  as  she  encoun 
tered  the  girl's  miserable  gaze  she  gave  her  a  gentle 
reassuring  smile,  full  of  that  curious,  patient  sweet 
ness  which  comes  in  the  faces  of  the  old  who  have  lived 
kindly. 

The  younger  members  of  the  family  escorted  the  new 
arrival  upstairs.  She  had  seen  her  room  before,  had 
already  placed  therein  her  piano  and  many  of  her 
smaller  ornaments,  but  its  bleakness  struck  her  anew. 
She  stopped  on  the  threshold,  looking  at  its  chill,  half- 
furnished  extent  with  a  sudden  throttling  sense  of 
homesickness.  It  was  a  large  room,  evidently  once  the 
state  bedroom  of  the  house,  signs  of  its  past  glory  lin 
gering  in  the  elaborate  gilt  chandelier,  the  white  wall 
paper,  strewed  with  golden  wheat-ears,  and  the  marble 
mantelpiece,  with  carvings  of  fruit  at  the  sides.  Now 
she  saw  with  renewed  clearness  of  vision  the  thread 
bare  carpet,  with  a  large  ink-stain  by  the  table,  the 
rocking-chair  with  one  arm  gone,  the  place  on  the 
wall  behind  the  sofa  where  the  heads  of  previous 
boarders  had  left  their  mark. 

"Your  clock  don't  go,"  said  the  cherubic  boy  in  a 
loud  voice.  "I've  tried  to  make  it,  but  it  only  ticks 
a  minute  and  then  stops." 

"There!"  said  Mrs.  Garcia,  with  a  gesture  of  col 
lapsed  hopelessness,  "he's  been  at  your  clock !  I  knew 
he  would.  Have  you  broken  her  clock  ?"  fiercely  to  the 
boy. 

"No,  I  ain't,"  he  returned,  not  in  the  least  overawed 
by  the  maternal  onslaught.  "It  were  broke  when  it 
came." 


198  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"He  did  break  it,"  said  the  other  boy  suddenly.  "He 
opened  the  back  door  of  it  and  stuck  a  hairpin  in." 

Mrs.  Garcia  made  a  rush  at  her  son  with  the  evident 
intention  of  administering  corporal  punishment  on  the 
spot.  But  with  a  loud,  derisive  shout,  he  eluded  her 
and  dashed  through  the  doorway.  Safe  on  the  stairs, 
he  cried  defiantly : 

"I  ain't  done  it,  and  no  one  can  prove  it." 

"That's  the  way  they  always  act,"  said  Mrs.  Garcia 
despondently,  pushing  up  her  bang  so  that  she  could 
the  better  see  her  new  guest.  "It's  no  picnic  having 
no  husband  and  having  to  slave  for  everybody." 

"Grandma  slaves,  too,"  said  the  rebel  on  the  stair 
way  ;  "she  slaves  more'n  you  do,  and  Uncle  Gam  slaves 
the  most." 

Further  revelations  were  stopped  by  another  ring  at 
the  bell.  Visitors  were  evidently  rare,  for  everybody 
but  Mariposa  flew  to  the  hall  and  precipitated  them 
selves  down  the  stairs.  In  the  general  interest  the  re 
cent  battle  was  forgotten,  the  rebel  earning  his  pardon 
by  getting  to  the  door  before  any  one  else.  The  new 
comer  was  Mariposa's  expressman.  She  had  already 
seen  through  her  window  the  uncovered  cart  with  her 
few  belongings  glistening  with  rain. 

The  driver,  a  grimy  youth  in  a  steaming  blouse,  was 
standing  in  the  doorway  with  the  wet  receipt  flapping 
in  his  hand. 

"It's  your  things,"  yelled  the  boys. 

"Tell  him  to  bring  them  up,"  said  Mariposa,  who 
was  now  at  the  stair-head  herself. 

The  man  stepped  into  the  hall  and  looked  up  at  her. 
He  had  a  singularly  red  and  impudent  face. 


THE   PALE   HORSE  199 

"Not  till  I  get  my  two  dollars  and  a  half,"  he  said. 

"Two  dollars  and  a  half!"  echoed  Mariposa  in 
alarm,  for  a  dollar  was  beginning  to  look  larger  to 
her  than  it  ever  had  done  before.  "It  was  only  a  dol 
lar." 

"A  dollar !"  he  shouted.  "A  dollar  for  that  load  I" 
— pointing  to  the  street — "say,  you've  got  a  gall !" 

Mariposa  flushed.  She  had  never  been  spoken  to 
this  way  before  in  her  life.  She  leaned  over  the  balus 
trade  and  said  haughtily : 

"Bring  in  my  things,  and  when  they're  up  here  I 
will  give  you  the  dollar  you  agreed  upon." 

The  man  gave  a  loud,  derisive  laugh. 

"That  beats  anything!"  he  said,  and  then  roared 
through  the  door  to  his  pard :  "Say,  she  wants  to  give 
us  a  dollar  for  that  load.  Ain't  that  rich  ?" 

There  was  a  moment's  silence  in  the  hall.  A  vulgar 
wrangle  was  almost  impossible  to  the  girl  at  the  junc 
ture  to  which  the  depressing  and  hideous  events  of  the 
last  few  weeks  had  brought  her.  Yet  she  had  still  a 
glimmer  of  spirit  left,  and  her  gorge  rose  at  the  impu 
dent  swindle. 

"I  won't  pay  you  two  dollars  and  a  half,  and  I  will 
have  my  things,"  she  said.  "Bring  them  up  at  once." 

The  man  laughed  again,  this  time  with  an  uglier 
note. 

"I  guess  not,  young  woman,"  he  said,  lounging 
against  the  balustrade.  "I  guess  you'll  have  to  fork 
out  the  two  fifty  or  whistle  for  your  things." 

Mariposa  made  no  answer.  Her  hand  shaking  with 
rage,  she  began  to  fumble  in  her  pocket  for  her  purse. 
The  whole  Garcia  family,  assembled  in  the  hallway  be- 


200  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

neath,  breathed  audibly  in  the  tense  excitement  of  the 
moment,  and  kept  moving  their  eyes  from  her  to  the 
expressman  and  back  again.  The  Chinaman  from  the 
kitchen  had  joined  them,  listening  with  the  charmed 
smile  which  the  menials  of  that  race  always  wear  on 
occasions  of  domestic  strife. 

"Say,"  said  the  man,  coming  a  step  up  the  stairs  and 
assuming  a  suddenly  threatening  air,  "I  can't  stay 
fooling  round  here  all  day.  I  want  my  money,  and  I 
want  it  quick.  D'ye  hear  ?" 

Mariposa's  hand  closed  on  the  purse.  She  would 
have  now  paid  anything  to  escape  from  this  hateful 
scene.  At  the  same  moment  she  heard  a  door  open 
behind  her,  a  quick  step  in  the  hall,  and  a  man  suddenly 
stood  beside  her  at  the  stair-head.  He  was  in  his  shirt 
sleeves  and  he  had  a  pen  in  his  hand. 

The  expressman,  who  had  mounted  two  or  three 
steps,  saw  him  and  recoiled,  looking  startled. 

"What's  the  matter  with  you?"  said  the  new-comer 
shortly. 

"I  want  my  money,"  said  the  man  doggedly,  but  re 
treating. 

"Who  owes  you  money?  And  what  do  you  mean 
by  making  a  row  like  this  in  this  house  ?" 

"I  owe  him  money,"  said  Mariposa.  "I  agreed  to 
pay  him  a  dollar  for  carrying  my  things  here,  and  now 
he  wants  two  and  a  half  and  won't  give  me  my 
things  unless  I  pay  it.  But  I'll  pay  what  he  wants 
rather  than  fight  this  way." 

She  was  conscious  of  a  slight,  amused  smile  in  the 
very  keen  and  clear  gray  eyes  the  man  beside  her 
fastened  for  one  listening  moment  on  her  face. 


THE    PALE    HORSE  201 

"Get  your  dollar,"  he  said,  "and  don't  bother  any 
more."  Then  in  a  loud  voice  down  the  stairway : 
"Here,  step  out  and  get  the  trunks  and  don't  let's  have 
any  more  talk  about  it.  Ching,"  to  the  Chinaman,  "go 
out  and  help  that  man  with  this  lady's  things." 

The  Chinaman  came  forward,  still  grinning.  The 
expressman  for  a  moment  hesitated. 

"Look  here,"  said  the  man  in  the  shirt-sleeves,  "I 
don't  want  to  have  to  come  downstairs,  I'm  busy." 

The  expressman,  with  Ching  behind  him,  hurried 
out. 

Mariposa's  deliverer  stood  at  the  stair-head  watch 
ing  them  and  slightly  smiling.  Then  he  turned  to  her. 
She  was  again  conscious  of  how  gray  and  clear  his  eyes 
looked  in  his  sunburned  face. 

"I  was  writing  a  letter  in  my  room,  and  I  heard  the 
sound  of  strife  long  before  I  realized  what  was  hap 
pening.  Why  didn't  you  call  me?" 

"I  didn't  know  there  was  any  one  there,"  she  an 
swered. 

"Well,  the  boys  ought  to  have  known.  Why  didn't 
one  of  you  little  beggars  come  for  me  ?"  he  said  to  the 
two  boys,  who  were  clambering  slowly  up  the  outside 
of  the  balustrade  staring  from  the  deliverer  to  the  ex 
pressman,  now  advancing  up  the  steps  with  Mariposa's 
belongings. 

"I  liked  to  see  'em  fight,"  said  the  smaller.  "I 
liked  it." 

"You  little  scamp,"  said  the  man,  and,  leaning  over 
the  stair-rail,  caught  the  ascending  cherub  by  the  slack 
of  his  knickerbockers  and  drew  him  upward,  shrieking 


202  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

delightedly.  On  the  landing  he  gave  him  a  slight 
shake,  and  said : 

"I  don't  want  to  hear  any  more  of  that  kind  of  talk. 
Next  time  there's  a  fight,  call  me." 

The  expressman  and  Ching  had  now  entered  laden 
with  the  luggage.  They  came  staggering  up  the  stairs, 
scraping  the  walls  with  the  corners  of  the  trunks  and 
softly  swearing.  Mariposa  started  for  her  room,  fol 
lowed  by  the  strange  man  and  the  two  boys. 

Her  deliverer  was  evidently  a  person  to  whom  the 
usages  of  society  were  matters  of  indifference.  He 
entered  the  room  without  permission  or  apology  and 
stood  looking  inquiringly  about  him,  his  glance  passing 
from  the  bed  to  the  wide,  old-fashioned  bureau,  the 
rocking-chair  with  its  arm  off  and  the  ink-stain  on  the 
carpet.  As  the  men  entered  with  their  burdens,  he 
said: 

"You  look  as  if  you'd  be  short  of  chairs  here.  I'll 
see  that  you  get  another  rocker  to-morrow." 

Mariposa  wondered  if  Mrs.  Garcia  was  about  to 
end  her  widowhood  and  this  was  the  happy  man. 

He  stood  about  as  the  men  set  down  the  luggage, 
and  watched  the  transfer  of  the  dollar  from  Mariposa's 
white  hand  to  the  dingy  one  of  her  late  enemy.  The 
boys  also  eyed  this  transaction  with  speechless  atten 
tion,  evidently  anticipating  a  second  outbreak  of  hos 
tilities.  But  peace  had  been  restored  and  would  evi 
dently  rule  as  long  as  the  sunburned  man  in  the  shirt 
sleeves  remained. 

This  he  appeared  to  intend  doing.  He  suggested  a 
change  in  the  places  of  one  or  two  of  Mariposa's  pieces 
of  furniture,  and  showed  her  how  she  could  use  her 


THE   PALE   HORSE  203 

screen  to  hide  the  bed.  He  looked  annoyed  over  a 
torn  strip  of  loose  wall-paper  that  hung  dejected,  re 
vealing  a  long  seam  of  plaster  like  a  seared  scar.  Then 
he  went  to  the  window  and  pushed  back  the  curtains  of 
faded  rep. 

"There's  a  nice  view  from  here  on  sunny  days  down 
into  the  garden." 

Mariposa  felt  she  must  show  interest,  and  went  to 
the  window,  too.  The  pane  was  not  clean,  and  the 
view  commanded  nothing  but  the  splendid  fountain- 
like  foliage  of  the  pepper-tree  and  below  a  sodden  strip 
of  garden  in  which  limp  chrysanthemums  hung  their 
heads,  while  a  ragged  nasturtium  vine  tried  to  protest 
its  vigor  by  flaunting  a  few  blossoms  from  the  top  of 
the  fence.  It  seemed  to  her  the  acme  of  forlornness. 
The  crescendo  of  the  afternoon's  unutterable  despond 
ency  had  reached  its  climax.  Her  sense  of  desola 
tion  welled  suddenly  up  into  overwhelming  life.  It 
caught  her  by  the  throat.  She  made  a  supreme  effort, 
and  said  in  a  shaken  voice : 

"It  looks  rather  damp  now." 

Her  companion  turned  from  the  window. 

"Here,  boys,  scoot,"  he  said  to  the  two  boys  who 
were  attempting  to  open  the  trunks  with  the  clock 
key.  "You've  got  no  business  hanging  round  here. 
Go  down  and  study  your  lessons." 

They  obediently  left  the  room.  Mariposa  heard  their 
jubilantly  clamorous  descent  of  the  stairs.  She  made 
no  attempt  to  leave  the  window,  or  to  speak  to  the  man, 
who  still  remained  moving  about  as  if  looking  for 
something.  The  light  was  growing  dim  in  the  dark 
wintry  day,  but  the  girl  still  stood  with  her  face  to  the 


204  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

pane.  She  knew  that  if  the  tears  against  which  she 
fought  should  come  there  would  be  a  deluge  of  them. 
Biting  her  lips  and  clenching  her  hands,  she  stood  peer 
ing  out,  speechless,  overwhelmed  by  her  wretched 
ness. 

Presently  the  man  said,  as  if  speaking  to  himself : 

"Where  the  devil  are  the  matches?  Elsie's  too  care 
less  for  anything." 

She  heard  him  feeling  about  on  shelves  and  tables, 
and  after  a  moment  he  said : 

"Did  you  see  where  the  matches  were?  I  want  to 
light  the  gas." 

"There  aren't  any,"  she  answered  without  turning. 

He  gave  a  suppressed  exclamation,  and,  opening 
the  door,  left  the  room. 

With  the  withdrawal  of  his  restraining  presence  the 
tension  snapped.  Mariposa  sank  down  in  the  chair 
near  the  window  and  the  tears  poured  from  her  eyes, 
tears  in  torrential  volume,  such  as  her  mother  had  shed 
twenty-five  years  before  in  front  of  Dan  Moreau's 
cabin. 

Her  grief  seized  her  and  swept  her  away.  She  shook 
with  it.  Why  could  she  not  die  and  escape  from  this 
hideous  world?  It  bowed  her  like  a  reed  before  a 
wind,  and  she  bent  her  face  on  the  chair  arm  and  trem 
bled  and  throbbed. 

She  did  not  hear  the  door  open,  nor  know  that  her 
solitude  was  again  invaded,  till  she  heard  the  man's 
step  beside  her.  Then  she  started  up,  strangled  with 
sobs  and  indignation. 

"Is  it  you  again?"  she  cried.  "Can't  you  see  how 
miserable  I  am  ?" 


THE    PALE   HORSE  205 

"I  saw  it  the  moment  I  came  out  of  my  room  this 
afternoon,"  he  answered  quietly.  "I'm  sorry  I  disturb 
you.  I  only  wanted  to  light  the  gas  and  get  the  place 
a  little  more  cheerful  and  warm.  It's  too  cold  in  here. 
You  go  on  crying.  Don't  bother  about  me ;  I'm  going 
to  light  the  fire." 

She  obeyed  him,  too  abject  in  her  misery  to  care. 
He  lit  all  the  gases  in  the  gilt  chandelier,  and  then 
knelt  before  the  fireplace.  Soon  the  snapping  of  the 
wood  contested  the  silence  with  the  small,  pathetic 
noises  of  the  woman's  weeping.  She  felt — at  first  with 
out  consciousness — the  grateful  warmth  of  the  blaze. 
Presently  she  removed  the  wad  of  saturated  handker 
chief  from  her  face.  The  room  was  inundated  by  a 
flood  of  light,  the  leaping  gleam  of  the  flames  licking 
the  glaze  of  the  few  old-fashioned  ornaments  and 
evoking  uncertain  gleams  from  the  long  mirror  stand 
ing  on  the  floor  in  the  corner.  The  man  was  sitting 
before  the  fire.  He  had  his  coat  on  now,  and  Mariposa 
could  see  that  he  was  tall  and  powerful,  a  bronzed  and 
muscular  man  of  about  thirty-five  years  of  age,  with  a 
face  tanned  to  mahogany  color,  thick-brown  hair  and 
a  brown  mustache.  His  hand,  as  it  rested  on  his  knee, 
caught  her  eye;  it  was  well  formed  but  worn  as  a 
laborer's. 

"Don't  you  want  to  come  and.  sit  near  the  fire?"  he 
said,  without  moving  his  head. 

She  murmured  a  negative. 

"I  see  that  your  clock  is  all  off,"  he  continued. 
"There's  something  the  matter  with  it.  I'll  fix  it  for 
you  this  evening." 

He  rose  and  lifted  the  clock  from  the  mantelpiece. 


206  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

It  was  a  small  timepiece  of  French  gilt,  one  of  the 
many  presents  her  father  had  given  her  mother  in  their 
days  of  affluence. 

As  he  lifted  it  Mariposa  suddenly  experienced  a  re 
turn  of  misery  at  the  thought  that  he  was  going.  At 
the  idea  of  being  again  left  to  herself  her  wretchedness 
rushed  back  upon  her  with  redoubled  force.  She  felt 
that  the  flood  of  tears  would  begin  again. 

"Oh,  don't  go,"  she  said,  with  the  imploring  urgency 
of  old  friendship.  "I'm  so  terribly  depressed.  Don't 
go." 

Her  lips  trembled,  her  swollen  eyes  were  without 
light  or  beauty.  She  was  as  distinctly  unlovely  as  a 
handsome  woman  can  be.  The  man,  however,  did  not 
look  at  her.  He  had  opened  the  door  of  the  clock 
and  was  studying  its  internal  machinery.  He  answered 
quietly : 

"I'll  have  to  go  now  for  a  while.  I  must  finish  my 
letter.  It's  got  to  go  out  to-night,  but  I  was  going  to 
ask  you  if  you  wouldn't  like  to  have  your  supper  up 
here?  It's  now  a  little  after  five;  at  six  o'clock  I'll 
bring  it,  and  if  you  don't  mind,  I'll  bring  mine  up, 
too.  I  just  take  tea  and  some  bread  and  butter  and 
jam  or  stuff — whatever  Elsie  happens  to  have  round. 
If  you'd  like  it,  you  fix  up  the  table  and  get  things  into 
some  sort  of  shape." 

He  walked  toward  the  door.  With  the  handle  in 
his  hand  he  said : 

"You  don't  mind  my  taking  mine  up  here,  too,  do 
you?  If  you  do,  just  say  so." 

"No,  I  don't  mind,"  said  Mariposa,  in  the  stifled  voice 
of  the  weeper. 


THE   PALE   HORSE  207 

When  he  had  gone  she  listlessly  tried  to  create  some 
kind  of  order  in  the  chaotic  room.  She  felt  exhausted 
and  indifferent.  Once  she  found  herself  looking  at 
her  watch  with  a  sort  of  heavy  desire  to  have  the  time 
pass  quickly.  She  dreaded  her  loneliness.  She  caught 
a  glimpse  of  herself  in  the  chimney-piece  glass  and  felt 
neither  shame  nor  disgust  at  her  unsightly  appear 
ance. 

At  six  o'clock  she  heard  the  quick,  decisive  step  in 
the  hall  that  earlier  in  the  afternoon  had  broken  in  on 
her  wrangle  with  the  expressman.  A  knock  came  on 
the  door  that  sounded  exceedingly  like  a  kick  bestowed 
under  difficulties.  She  opened  it,  and  her  new  friend 
entered  bearing  a  large  tray  set  forth  with  the  para 
phernalia  of  a  cold  supper  and  with  the  evening  paper 
laid  on  top.  He  put  it  on  the  cleared  table,  and  to 
gether  they  lifted  off  its  contents  and  set  them  forth. 
There  was  cold  meat,  jam,  bread  and  butter,  a  brown 
pottery  teapot  with  the  sprout  broken  and  two  very 
beautiful  cups,  delicate  and  richly  decorated.  Then 
they  sat  down,  one  at  each  side  of  the  table,  and  the 
meal  began. 

Mariposa  did  not  care  to  eat.  Sitting  under  the 
blaze  of  the  gilt  chandelier,  with  the  firelight  gilding 
one  side  of  her  flushed  and  disfigured  face,  she  poured 
out  the  tea,  while  her  companion  attacked  the  cold  meat 
with  good  appetite.  The  broken  spout  leaked,  and  she 
found  herself  guiltily  regarding  the  man  opposite,  as 
she  surreptitiously  tried  to  sop  up  with  a  napkin  the 
streams  of  tea  it  sent  over  the  table-cloth. 

He  appeared  to  have  the  capacity  for  seeing  anything 
that  occurred  in  his  vicinity. 


208  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Never  mind  the  teapot,"  he  said,  with  his  mouth 
full ;  "it  always  does  that.  It's  no  good  getting  a  new 
one.  I  think  the  boys  break  them.  Elsie  says  they 
play  boats  with  them  in  the  bath-tub." 

Mariposa  made  no  reply,  and  the  meal  progressed 
in  silence.  Presently  her  vis-a-vis  held  out  his  cup 
for  a  second  filling. 

"What  beautiful  cups,"  she  said.  "It  would  be  a 
pity  to  break  them." 

"They're  grandma's.  They're  the  only  two  left. 
Grandma  had  some  stunning  things,  brought  round 
The  Horn  by  her  husband  in  the  early  days,  before  the 
Gringo  came.  He  was  a  great  man  in  his  day,  Don 
Manuel  Garcia." 

"Is  she  your  grandmother,  too?"  Mariposa  asked. 
It  seemed  natural  to  put  pointblank  questions  to  this 
man,  who  so  completely  swept  aside  the  smaller  con 
ventions. 

"Mine?  Oh,  Lord,  no.  My  poor  old  granny  died 
crossing  the  plains  in  '49.  I  was  there,  but  I  don't 
remember  it.  I  call  old  lady  Garcia  grandma,  because 
I'm  here  so  much,  and  because  I  look  upon  them  as  my 
family." 

"Do  you  live  here  always  ?"  asked  Mariposa,  looking 
with  extinguished  eyes  over  the  piece  of  bread  she  was 
nibbling. 

"No,  I  live  at  the  mines.  I'm  a  miner.  My  stamp 
ing-ground's  the  whole  Sierra  from  Siskiyou  to  Tuo- 
lumne." 

He  looked  at  her  with  a  queer,  whimsical  smile. 
His  strong  white  teeth  gleamed  for  a  moment  from  be 
tween  his  bearded  lips. 


THE    PALE   HORSE  209 

"I'm  up  at  the  Sierra  a  lot  of  the  time,"  he  continued, 
"and  then  I'm  down  here  a  lot  more  of  the  time.  I 
come  here  to  find  my  victims.  I  locate  a  good  pros 
pect  in  the  Sierra,  and  I  come  down  here  to  sell  it. 
That's  my  business." 

"What's  your  name?"  asked  Mariposa  suddenly, 
hearing  herself  ask  this  last  and  most  pertinent  ques 
tion  with  the  dry  glibness  of  an  interviewer. 

"My  name?  Great  Scott,  you  don't  know  it!"  he 
threw  back  his  head  and  a  jolly,  sonorous  laugh  filled 
the  room.  "That's  great,  you  and  I  sitting  here  to 
gether  over  supper  as  if  we'd  grown  up  together  in 
the  same  nursery,  and  you  don't  know  what  my  name 
is.  It's  Gamaliel  Barren.  Do  you  like  it?" 

"Yes,"  said  Mariposa,  gravely,  "it's  a  very  nice 
name." 

"I'm  glad  you  think  so.  I  can't  say  I'm  much  at 
tached  to  the  front  end  of  it.  It's  a  Bible  name.  I 
haven't  the  least  idea  who  the  gentleman  was,  or  what 
he  did,  but  he's  in  the  Bible  somewhere." 

"Saul  sat  at  his  feet,"  said  Mariposa ;  "he  was  a  great 
teacher." 

"Well,  I'm  afraid  his  namesake  isn't  much  like  him. 
I  never  taught  anybody  anything,  and  certainly  no 
one  ever  sat  at  my  feet,  and  I'd  hate  it  if  they  did." 

There  was  another  pause,  while  Barren  continued 
his  supper  with  unabated  gusto.  He  had  finished  the 
cold  meat  and  was  now  spreading  jam  on  bread  and 
butter  and  eating  it,  with  alternate  mouthfuls  of  tea. 
Though  he  ate  rapidly,  as  one  accustomed  to  take  his 
meals  alone,  he  ate  like  a  gentleman.  She  found  her- 


TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 


self  regarding  him  with  a  listless  curiosity,  faintly 
wondering  what  manner  of  man  he  was. 

Looking  up  he  met  her  eyes  and  said  : 

"You'll  be  very  comfortable  here.  Don't  let  the  first 
glimpse  discourage  you.  Elsie's  careless,  and  the  boys 
are  pretty  wild,  but  they're  all  right  when  you  come 
to  know  them  better,  and  grandma's  fine.  There's 
not  many  women  in  San  Francisco  to  match  old  Se- 
fiora  Garcia.  She's  the  true  kind." 

"What  a  pity  her  son  died  !"  said  Mariposa. 

He  raised  his  head  instantly  and  an  expression  of 
pain  passed  over  his  face. 

"You're  right,  there,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice.  "That 
was  one  of  the  hardest  things  that  ever  happened.  If 
there's  a  God  I'd  like  to  know  why  he  let  it  happen. 
Juan  Garcia  was  the  salt  of  the  earth  —  a  great  man. 
He  was  the  best  son,  the  best  husband  and  the  best 
friend  I  ever  knew.  And  he  was  killed  offhand,  for 
no  reason,  by  an  unnecessary  accident,  leaving  these 
poor,  helpless  creatures  this  way." 

He  made  a  gesture  with  his  head  toward  the  door. 

"You  knew  him  well  ?"  said  Mariposa. 

The  gray  eyes  looked  into  hers  very  gravely. 

"He  was  my  best  friend,"  he  answered;  "the  best 
friend  any  man  ever  had  in  the  world." 

The  girl  saw  he  was  moved. 

"The  people  we  love,  and  depend  on,  and  live  for 
always  die,"  she  said  gloomily. 

"But  others  come  up.  They  don't  quite  take  their 
places,  but  they  fill  up  the  holes  in  the  ranks.  We're 
not  expected  always  to  love  comfortably  and  be  happy. 
We're  expected  to  workj  that's  what  we're  here  for, 


THE    PALE    HORSE  211 

and  there's  plenty  of  it  to  do.  Haven't  I  got  my  work 
cut  out  for  me,"  suddenly  laughing,  "in  those  two 
boys?" 

Mariposa's  pale  lips  showed  the  ripple  of  an  as 
senting  smile. 

"They're  certainly  a  serious  proposition,"  he  contin 
ued,  "and  poor  Elsie  can't  any  more  manage  'em  than 
she  could  ride  a  bucking  bronco.  But  they'll  pull  out 
all  right.  Don't  you  worry.  Those  boys  are  all  right." 

He  was  about  to  return  to  the  remnants  of  the  sup 
per  when  his  eyes  fell  on  the  folded  paper,  which  had 
been  pushed  to  one  side  of  the  table. 

"Oh,  look !"  he  said ;  "we  forgot  the  paper.  You've 
finished ;  wouldn't  you  like  to  see  it  ?" 

She  shook  her  head.  The  paper  had  not  much  in 
terest  for  her  at  the  best  of  times. 

"Well,  then,  if  you  don't  mind,  I'll  run  my  eye  over 
it,  while  you  make  me  another  cup  of  tea.  Three  cups 
are  my  limit — one  lump  and  milk." 

He  handed  her  the  cup,  already  shaking  the  paper 
out  of  its  folds.  She  was  struggling  with  the  leakage 
of  the  broken  spout,  when  he  gave  a  loud  ejaculation: 

"Great  Scott !  here's  news  !" 

"What  is  it?"  she  queried,  the  broken  teapot  sus 
pended  over  the  cup. 

"Jake  Shackleton's  dead!" 

The  teapot  fell  with  a  crash  on  the  table.  Her 
mouth  opened,  her  face  turned  an  amazing  pallor,  and 
she  sat  staring  at  the  astonished  man  with  horror- 
stricken  eyes. 

"Dead !"  she  gasped ;  "why  everybody's  dead !" 

Barren  dropped  the  paper  on  the  floor. 


212  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"I'm  so  awfully  sorry ;  I  didn't  know  you  knew  him 
well.  I  didn't  know  he  was  a  friend." 

"Friend!"  she  echoed,  almost  with  a  shriek. 
"Friend !  Why,  he  was  my  father." 

The  voice  ended  in  a  wild  peal  of  laughter,  horrible, 
almost  maniacal. 

The  man,  paying  no  attention  to  her  words,  realized 
that  the  strain  of  the  day  and  her  overwhelming  de 
pression  of  spirits  had  completely  unbalanced  her. 
Her  wild  laughter  suddenly  gave  way  to  wilder  tears. 
In  a  moment  he  ran  to  the  door  to  summon  the  senora, 
but  in  the  next,  remembered  that  Elsie  and  the  boys 
would  undoubtedly  accompany  her,  and  that  the 
woman  before  him  was  in  no  state  to  be  exposed  to 
their  uncomprehending  stares. 

Hysterics  were  new  to  him,  but  he  had  a  vague  idea 
that  water  administered  suddenly  from  a  pitcher  was 
the  only  authorized  cure.  He  seized  the  pitcher  from 
the  wash-stand,  began  to  sprinkle  her  somewhat  tim 
idly  with  his  fingers,  and  finally  ended  by  pouring  a 
fair  amount  on  her  head. 

It  had  the  desired  effect.  Gasping,  saturated,  but 
dragged  back  to  some  sort  of  control,  by  the  chill  cur 
rent  running  from  her  head  in  rillets  over  her  body, 
Mariposa  sat  up.  The  man  was  standing  before  her, 
anxiously  regarding  her,  the  pitcher  held  ready  for 
another  application.  She  pushed  it  away  with  an  icy 
hand. 

"I'm  all  right  now,"  she  gasped.  "You'd  better  go. 
And — and — if  I  said  anything  silly,  you  understand,  I 
didn't  know  what  I  was  saying.  I  meant — that  Mr. 
Shackleton  was  a  friend  of  my  father's.  He's  been 


THE   PALE    HORSE  213 

very  good  to  me.    It  gave  me  an  awful  shock.    Please 

go." 

Barren  set  down  the  pitcher  and  went.  He  was 
overcome  with  pity  for  the  broken  creature,  and  furi 
ous  with  himself  for  the  shock  he  had  given  her.  The 
words  she  had  uttered  had  made  little  impression  on 
him  at  first.  It  was  afterward,  while  he  was  in  the 
silence  of  his  own  room,  that  they  recurred  to  him  with 
more  significance.  For  a  space  he  thought  of  the  re 
mark  and  her  explanation  of  it  with  some  wonder. 
But  before  he  settled  to  sleep,  he  had  pushed  the  mat 
ter  from  his  mind,  setting  it  down  as  the  meaningless 
utterance  of  an  hysterical  woman. 


CHAPTER  XL 

BREAKS    IN   THE   RAIN 

"I  had  no  time  to  hate  because 
The  grave  would  hinder  me, 
And  life  was  not  so  simple  I 
Could    finish    enmity." 

— DICKINSON. 

For  two  days  after  her  hysterical  outburst  Mariposa 
kept  her  room,  sick  in  body  and  mind.  The  quick 
succession  of  nerve-shattering  events,  ending  with  the 
death  of  Shackleton,  seemed  to  stun  her.  She  lay 
on  the  sofa,  white  and  motionless,  irresponsive  even  to 
the  summons  of  the  boys,  who  drummed  cheerfully  on 
her  door  as  soon  as  they  came  home  from  school. 

Fortunately  for  her,  solitude  was  as  difficult  to  find 
in  that  slipshod  menage  as  method  or  order.  When 
the  boys  were  at  school,  young  Mrs.  Garcia,  in  the 
disarray  that  attended  the  accomplishment  of  her 
household  tasks,  mounted  to  her  first-floor  boarder 
and  regaled  her  with  mingled  accounts  of  past  splen 
dors  and  present  miseries.  Mrs.  Garcia  spoke  freely 
of  her  husband  and  the  affluence  with  which  he  had 
surrounded  her.  The  listener,  looking  at  the  faded, 
blond  prettiness  of  her  foolish  face,  wondered  how 
the  Juan  Garcia  that  Gamaliel  Barren  had  described 
could  have  loved  her.  Mariposa  had  yet  to  learn  that 

214 


BREAKS    IN   THE   RAIN  215 

Nature  mates  the  strong  men  of  the  world  to  the  feeble 
women,  in  an  effort  to  maintain  an  equilibrium. 

Once  or  twice  the  old  senora  came  upstairs,  carry 
ing  some  dainty  in  a  covered  dish.  She  had  been  born 
at  Monterey  and  had  come  to  San  Francisco  as  a  bride 
in  the  late  fifties,  but  had  never  learned  English,  speak 
ing  the  sonorous  Spanish  of  her  girlhood  to  every  one 
she  met,  whether  it  was  understood  or  not.  Even  in 
the  complete  wreck  of  fortune  and  position,  in  which 
Mariposa  saw  her,  she  was  a  fine  example  of  the  high 
est  class  of  Spanish  Californian,  that  once  brilliant  and 
picturesque  race,  careless,  simple,  lazy,  happy,  lords 
of  a  kingdom  whose  value  they  never  guessed,  posses 
sors  of  limitless  acres  on  which  their  cattle  grazed. 

The  day  after  Shackleton's  death  Mrs.  Willers  ap 
peared,  still  aghast  at  the  suddenness  of  the  catas 
trophe.  Mariposa  did  not  know  that  a  few  days  pre 
viously,  Shackleton  had  acquainted  the  newspaper 
woman  with  his  intention  of  sending  her  to  Paris  with 
Miss  Moreau,  the  post  of  correspondent  to  The  Trump 
et  being  assigned  to  her.  It  had  been  the  culminating 
point  of  Mrs.  Willers'  life  of  struggle.  Now  all  that 
lay  shattered.  Be  it  said  to  her  credit  her  disappoint 
ment  was  more  for  the  girl  than  for  herself.  She 
knew  that  Shackleton  had  made  no  definite  arrange 
ments  for  the  starting  of  Mariposa  on  her  way.  All 
had  been  in  statu  quo,  attending  on  the  daughter's  re 
covery  from  her  mother's  loss.  Now  death  had  stepped 
in  and  forever  closed  the  door  upon  these  hopes. 

Mrs.  Willers  found  Mariposa  strangely  apathetic. 
She  had  tried  to  cheer  her  and  then  had  seen,  to  her 
amazement,  that  the  girl  showed  little  disappointment. 


216  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

That  the  sudden  blow  had  upset  her  was  obvious.  She 
undoubtedly  looked  ill.  But  the  wrenching  from  her 
hand  of  liberty,  independence,  possibilities  of  fame, 
seemed  to  affect  her  little.  She  listened  in  silence 
to  Mrs.  Willers'  account  of  the  Bonanza  King's 
death.  As  an  "inside  writer"  on  The  Trumpet  the 
newspaper  woman  had  heard  every  detail  of  the  tragic 
event  discussed  threadbare  in  the  perturbed  office. 
Shackleton  had  been  found,  as  the  paper  stated,  sitting 
at  his  desk  in  the  library  at  Menlo  Park.  He  had  been 
writing  letters  when  death  called  him.  His  wife  had 
come  in  late  at  night  and  found  him  thus,  leaning  on 
the  desk  as  if  tired.  It  was  an  aneurism,  the  doctors 
said.  The  heart  had  been  diseased  for  years.  No  one, 
however,  had  had  any  idea  of  it.  Poor  Mrs.  Shack 
leton  was  completely  prostrated.  It  was  not  newspaper 
talk  that  she  was  in  a  state  of  collapse. 

"And  it  was  enough  to  collapse  any  woman,"  said 
Mrs.  Willers,  with  a  sympathetic  wag  of  the  head,  "to 
come  in  and  find  your  husband  sitting  up  at  his  desk 
stone  dead.  And  a  good  husband,  too.  It  would 
have  given  me  a  shock  to  have  found  Willers  that 
way,  and  even  an  obituary  notice  in  the  paper  of  which 
he  was  proprietor  could  hardly  have  called  Willers  a 
good  husband." 

Two  days'  rest  restored  Mariposa  to  some  sort  of 
balance.  She  still  felt  weak  and  stunned  in  heart  and 
brain.  The  lack  of  interest  she  had  shown  to  Mrs. 
Willers  had  been  the  outward  sign  of  this  internal  be 
numbed  condition.  But  as  she  slowly  dressed  on  the 
morning  of  the  third  day,  she  felt  a  slight  ripple  of 
returning  life,  a  thawing  of  these  congealed  faculties. 


BREAKS    IN   THE   RAIN  217 

She  heard  the  quick,  decisive  step  of  Barren  in  the 
hallway  outside,  and  then  its  stoppage  at  her  door, 
and  his  call  through  the  crack,  "How  are  you  this 
morning?  Better?" 

"Much,"  she  answered ;  "I'm  getting  up." 

"First-rate.  Couldn't  do  better.  Get  a  move  on  and 
go  out.  It's  a  day  that  would  put  life  into  a  mummy. 
I'd  take  you  out  myself,  but  I've  got  to  go  down  town 
and  lasso  one  of  my  victims." 

Then  he  clattered  down  the  stairs.  Mariposa  had 
not  seen  him  since  their  supper  together.  Every  morn 
ing  he  had  stopped  and  called  a  greeting  of  some  sort 
through  the  door.  She  shrank  from  meeting  him 
again.  The  extraordinary  remark  she  had  made  to 
him  haunted  her.  The  only  thing  that  appeased  her 
was  the  memory  of  his  face,  in  which  there  was  no 
consciousness  of  the  meaning  of  her  words,  only  con 
sternation  and  amaze  at  the  effect  his  news  had  pro 
duced. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  wonderful  day.  Through  her 
parted  curtains  she  saw  details  of  the  splendor  in  the 
bits  of  turquoise  sky  between  the  houses,  and  the  vivid 
greens  of  the  rain-washed  gardens.  When  the  sun 
was  well  up,  and  the  opened  window  let  in  delicious 
earth  scents,  she  put  on  her  hat  and  jacket  and  went 
out,  turning  her  steps  to  that  high  spine  of  the  city 
along  the  crest  of  which  California  Street  runs. 

Has  any  place  been  found  where  there  are  finer  days 
than  those  San  Francisco  can  show  in  winter?  "The 
breaks  in  the  rain,"  old  Californians  call  them.  It  is 
the  rain  that  gives  them  their  glory,  for  the  whole 
world  has  been  washed  clean  and  gleams  like  an  agate 


218  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

beneath  a  wave.  The  skies  reflect  this  clearness  of 
tint.  There  are  no  clouds.  The  whole  arch  is  a  rich 
blue,  fading  at  the  horizon  to  a  thin,  pale  transparency. 
The  landscape  is  painted  with  a  few  washes  of  fresh 
primary  colors,  each  one  deep,  but  limpid,  like  the 
tints  in  the  heart  of  a  gem.  And  in  this  crystalline 
purity  of  atmosphere  every  line  is  cut  with  unfaltering 
distinctness.  There  is  no  faintness,  no  breath  of  haze, 
or  forgotten  film  of  fog.  Nature  seems  even  jealous  of 
the  smoke-wreaths  that  rise  from  the  city  to  blur  the 
beauty  of  the  mighty  picture,  and  the  gray  spirals  are 
hurriedly  dispersed. 

Mariposa  walked  slowly,  ascending  by  a  zigzag 
course  from  street  to  street,  idly  looking  at  the  houses 
and  gardens  as  she  passed.  People  of  consideration 
had  for  some  time  been  on  the  move  from  South  Park 
to  this  side  of  town.  The  streets  through  which  the 
young  girl's  course  led  her  were  now  the  gathering 
place  of  the  city's  successful  citizens.  On  the  heights 
above  them,  the  new  millionaires  were  raising  palaces, 
which  they  were  emulating  on  the  ascending  slopes. 
Great  houses  reared  themselves  on  every  sunny  cor 
ner.  The  architecture  of  the  bay-windowed  mansion 
with  the  two  lions  sleeping  on  the  front  steps  had  sup 
planted  that  of  the  dignified,  plastered-brick  fronts, 
with  the  long  lines  of  windows  opening  on  wrought- 
iron  balconies. 

These  huge  wooden  edifices  housed  the  wealth  and 
fashion  of  the  city.  Mariposa  paused  and  stood  with 
knit  brows,  looking  down  from  a  vantage-point  on  the 
glittering  curve  of  greenhouse  and  the  velvet  lawns 
of  Jake  Shackleton's  town  house ;  there  was  no  sign  of 


BREAKS    IN    THE   RAIN  219 

life  or  occupation  about  it.  Curtains  of  lace  veiled  its 
innumerable  windows.  Only  in  the  angle  of  lawn  and 
garden  that  abutted  on  the  intersection  of  two  streets, 
a  man,  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  was  cutting  calla  lilies  from 
the  hedge  that  topped  the  high  stone  wall  which  rose 
from  the  sidewalk. 

Finally,  on  the  crest  of  the  hill,  where  California 
Street  runs  between  its  palaces,  the  girl  paused  and 
looked  about  her.  The  great  buildings  were  new,  and 
stood,  vast,  awe-compelling  monuments  to  California's 
material  glory.  Their  owners  were  still  trying  to  make 
themselves  comfortable  in  them.  There  were  sons  and 
daughters  to  be  married  from  them.  Perched  high 
above  the  city,  in  these  many-windowed  aeries,  they 
could  look  down  on  the  town  they  had  seen  grow  from 
a  village  in  the  days  when  they,  too,  had  been  young, 
poor  and  struggling.  What  memories  must  have 
crowded  their  minds  as  they  thought  of  the  San  Fran 
cisco  they  had  first  seen,  and  the  San  Francisco  they 
saw  now ;  of  themselves  as  they  had  been  then,  and  as 
they  were  now ! 

Mariposa  leaned  against  a  convenient  wall  top  and 
looked  down.  The  city  lay  clear-edged  and  gray  in 
the  cup  made  by  its  encircling  hills.  It  had  not  yet 
thrown  out  feelers  toward  the  Mission  hills,  and  they 
rose  above  the  varied  sweep  of  roof  and  chimney,  in 
undulating  greenness,  flecked  here  and  there  by  the 
white  dot  of  a  cottage.  The  girdle  of  the  bay  shone 
sapphire-blue  on  this  day  of  still  sunshine.  From  its 
farther  side  other  hills  were  revealed,  each  peak  and 
shoulder  clear  cut  against  its  neighbor  and  denning 
themselves  in  a  crumpled,  cobalt  line  against  the  faint 


220  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

sky.  Over  all  Mount  Diavolo  rose,  a  purple  point, 
pricking  up  above  the  green  of  newly  grassed  hills, 
about  whose  feet  hung  a  white  fringe  of  little  towns. 

Turning  her  eyes  again  on  the  descending  walls  and 
roofs,  the  watcher  saw  a  long  cortege  passing  soberly 
between  the  gray  house-fronts  on  a  street  a  few  blocks 
below  her.  As  she  looked  the  boom  of  solemn  music 
rose  to  her.  It  was  a  funeral,  and  ene  of  unusual 
length,  she  thought,  as  her  eyes  caught  the  slow  line  of 
carriages  far  back  through  breaks  in  the  houses.  Pres 
ently,  in  the  opening  where  two  streets  crossed,  the 
hearse  came  into  view,  black  and  gloomy,  with  its  nod 
ding  tufts  of  feathers  and  somberly  caparisoned  horses. 
Men  walked  behind  it,  and  the  measured  music  swelled 
louder,  melancholy  and  yet  inspiring. 

Suddenly  she  realized  whose  it  was.  The  rich  man 
was  going  splendidly  to  his  rest. 

"My  father !"  she  whispered  to  herself.  "My  father ! 
How  strange !  how  strange !" 

The  cortege  passed  on,  the  music  swelling  gran 
diosely  and  then  dying  down  into  fitful  snatches  of 
sweetness.  The  long  line  of  carriages  moved  slowly 
forward,  at  a  crawling  foot-pace. 

The  daughter  leaned  on  the  coping  of  the  wall, 
watching  this  last  passage  through  the  city  of  the 
father  she  had  known  so  slightly  and  toward  whom  she 
felt  a  bitter  and  silent  resentment. 

She  watched  the  nodding  plumes  till  they  were  out 
of  sight.  How  strangely  death  had  drawn  together 
the  three  that  life  had  separated !  In  six  months  the 
woman  and  two  men,  tied  together  by  a  twist  of  the 


BREAKS    IN    THE   RAIN  221 

hand  of  Fate,  had  been  summoned,  one  after  the  other, 
into  the  darkness  beyond.  Would  they  meet  there? 
Mariposa  shuddered  and  turned  away.  The  black 
plumes  had  disappeared,  but  the  music  still  boomed 
fitfully  in  measured  majesty. 

The  whistles  were  blowing  for  midday  when  she  re 
traced  her  steps  to  the  Garcia  house.  As  she  mounted 
the  stairs  to  the  front  door  she  became  aware  that 
there  were  several  people  grouped  on  the  balcony, 
their  forms  dimly  visible  through  the  grimy  glass  and 
behind  the  rampart  of  long-stemmed  geraniums  that 
grew  there  in  straggling  neglect.  The  opening  of  the 
outer  door  let  her  in  on  them.  She  started  and  slightly 
changed  color  when  she  saw  that  one  of  the  figures 
was  that  of  Gamaliel  Barron.  He  was  sitting  on  the 
arm  of  a  dilapidated  rocker,  frowningly  staring  at  Be- 
nito,  the  younger  Garcia  boy,  against  whom,  it  ap 
peared,  a  charge  of  some  moment  had  just  been 
brought.  The  case  was  being  placed  before  Barron, 
who  evidently  acted  as  judge,  by  a  person  Mariposa 
had  not  seen  before — a  tall,  thin  young  man  of  some 
thirty  years,  with  a  stoop  in  the  shoulders,  a  shock  of 
fine  black  hair,  and  a  pair  of  very  soft  and  beautiful 
blue  eyes. 

They  were  so  preoccupied  in  the  matter  before 
them  that  no  effort  was  made  to  introduce  the  stranger 
to  Mariposa,  though  Barron  offered  her  his  armchair, 
retiring  to  a  seat  on  the  balcony  railing,  whence  he 
loomed  darkly  severe,  from  among  the  straggling 
geraniums.  Benito,  in  his  sailor  collar  and  wispy 
curls,  maintained  an  air  of  smiling  innocence,  but 


222  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Miguel,  the  elder  boy,  who  was  an  interested  witness, 
bore  evidence  of  uneasiness  of  mind  in  the  strained 
attention  of  the  face  turned  toward  Barron. 

Mariposa  paused,  her  hand  on  the  back  of  the  rock 
ing-chair.  Benito  had  already  inserted  himself  into 
her  affections.  She  looked  from  one  to  the  other  to 
ascertain  his  offense.  Both  men  were  regarding  the 
culprit,  Barron  with'  frowning  disapproval,  the  other 
with  eyes  full  of  amusement.  It  was  he  who  proceeded 
to  state  the  case  against  the  accused : 

"She  leaned  over  the  railing  and  said  to  me,  Them 
little  boys  will  be  sick  if  they  eat  that  crab.'  'What 
crab  and  what  little  boys?'  I  asked,  quite  innocently, 
and  she  answered,  'Them  little  boys  in  the  vacant 
lot !'  Then  I  turned  and  saw  Benito  and  Miguel  squat 
ting  in  the  grass  among  the  tomato  cans  and  frag 
ments  of  the  daily  press,  with  a  crab  that  they  were 
breaking  up  between  them,  a  crab  about  as  big  as  a 
cart-wheel." 

"We  found  it  there,"  said  Benito.  "It  were  just; 
lying  there." 

"  'If  they  eat  that  crab,'  the  lady  continued,  'they'll 
be  sick.  It  ain't  no  good.  I  threw  it  out  myself.  And 
I've  been  hollerin'  to  them  to  stop,  and  that  little  one 
with  the  curls,  just  turned  round  on  me  and  says, 
"Oh,  you  go  to  the  devil !"  '  " 

The  complainant  paused,  looked  at  Mariposa  with 
an  eye  in  which  she  saw  laughter  dancing,  and  said : 

"That's  rather  a  startling  way  for  a  gentleman  to 
speak  to  a  lady,  isn't  it  ?" 

Though  the  language  used  by  the  accused  was  hard 
to  associate  with  his  cherubic  appearance,  and  had 


BREAKS    IN    THE   RAIN  223 

somewhat  shocked  Mariposa's  affection,  she  could 
hardly  repress  a  smile.  Benito  grinning,  as  if  with 
pride  at  the  prowess  he  had  shown  in  the  encounter 
with  the  strange  female,  looked  at  his  brother  and 
emitted  an  explosive  laugh.  Miguel,  however,  had 
more  clearly  guessed  the  seriousness  of  the  offense, 
and  looked  uneasy.  Barren  was  regarding  the  younger 
boy  with  unmoved  and  angry  gravity.  Mariposa  saw 
that  the  man  was  not  in  the  least  inclined  to  treat 
the  matter  humorously. 

"Did  you  really  say  that,  Benito  ?"  he  said. 

"Well,"  said  Benito,  swaying  his  body  from  side  to 
side,  and  fastening  his  eyes  on  a  knife  he  had  care 
lessly  extracted  from  his  pocket,  "I  didn't  see  what 
she  had  to  do  with  that  crab.  It  was  all  alone  in  the 
vacant  lot.  How  was  we  to  know  it  was  her  crab  ?" 

"But,"  to  Miguel,  "she  told  you  before  not  to  touch 
it,  that  it  was  bad,  didn't  she?" 

"Yes,"  returned  the  elder  boy,  exceedingly  uncom 
fortable.  "She  come  and  leaned  over  the  railing  and 
hollered  at  us  not  to  touch  it,  that  it  was  bad  and  it  'ud 
make  us  sick.  Then  I  stopped  'cause  I  didn't  want  to 
get  sick.  But  Ben  wouldn't,  and  she  hollered  again, 
and  then  he  told  her  to  go  to  the  devil,  and  Mr.  Pier- 
pont  came  along  just  then,  and  she  told  him,  and  Ben 
got  skairt  and  stopped." 

There  was  a  moment's  silence.  The  younger  boy 
continued  to  smile  and  finger  his  knife,  but  it  was  evi 
dent  he  was  not  so  easy  in  his  mind.  The  stranger, 
now  with  difficulty  restraining  his  laughter,  turned 
again  to  Mariposa  and  said : 

"If  the  lady  had  been  in  any  way  aggressing  on  the 


224  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

young  gentleman's  comfort  or  convenience,  it  would 
not  have  been  exactly  justifiable,  but  comprehensible. 
But  when  you  consider  that  her  sole  desire  was  to  save 
him  from  eating  something  that  would  make  him  sick, 
then  you  begin  to  realize  the  seriousness  of  the  offense. 
Oh,  Benito,  you're  in  a  bad  way,  I'm  afraid !" 

"I  ain't  nothing  of  the  kind,"  said  Benito,  smiling 
and  showing  his  dimples.  "I  ain't  done  nothing  more 
than  Miguel." 

"I  didn't  tell  her  to  go  to  the  devil,"  exclaimed 
Miguel,  in  a  loud,  combative  voice. 

"  'Cause  I  said  it  first,"  replied  his  brother,  calmly. 
"You  didn't  have  time." 

"Well,  Benito,"  said  Barren,  "I've  got  no  use  for 
you  when  you  behave  that  way.  There's  no  excuse  for 
it.  You've  used  the  worst  kind  of  language  to  a  lady 
who  was  trying  to  do  a  decent  thing.  I  won't  take  you 
this  afternoon." 

The  change  on  Benito's  face  was  sudden  and  pit 
eous.  The  smile  was  frozen  on  his  lips,  he  turned 
crimson,  and  said  stammeringly,  evidently  hardly  be 
lieving  his  ears : 

"To  see  the  balloon  ?  Oh,  Uncle  Gam,  you  promised 
it  for  a  week.  Oh,  I'd  rather  see  the  balloon  than  any 
thing.  Oh,  Uncle  Gam !" 

"There's  no  use  talking ;  I  won't  take  a  boy  who  be 
haves  that  way.  I'm  angry  with  you." 

The  man  was  absolutely  grave  and,  Mariposa  saw, 
spoke  the  truth  when  he  said  he  was  angry.  The  boy 
was  about  to  plead,  when  probably  a  knowledge  of  the 
hopelessness  of  such  a  course  silenced  him.  With  a 


BREAKS   IN   THE   RAIN  225 

flushed  face,  he  stood  before  the  tribunal  righting  with 
his  tears,  proud  and  silent.  When  he  could  no  longer 
control  them  he  turned  and  rushed  into  the  house, 
his  bursting  sobs  issuing  from  the  hallway.  Miguel 
charged  after  him. 

"Oh,  poor  little  fellow!"  cried  Mariposa;  "how 
could  you  ?  Take  him  to  see  the  balloon ;  do,  please." 

Barren  made  no  reply,  sitting  on  the  railing,  frown 
ing  and  abstracted.  She  turned  her  eyes  on  the  other 
man.  He  was  still  smiling. 

"Barren's  bringing  up  the  boys,"  he  said,  "and  he 
takes  it  hard." 

"If  I  didn't,"  said  the  man  from  the  railing,  "who 
would  ?  Heaven  knows  I  don't  want  to  disappoint  the 
poor  little  cuss,  but  somebody's  got  to  try  and  keep 
him  in  order." 

"Can't  you  punish  him  some  other  way?  He's  been 
talking  about  seeing  the  balloon  for  days." 

"I  wish  to  goodness  I'd  somebody  to  help  me,"  said 
the  judge  moodily;  "I'm  not  up  to  this  sort  of  work. 
It  makes  me  feel  the  meanest  thing  that  walks  to  get 
up  and  punish  a  boy  for  things  that  are  just  what  I 
did  when  I  was  the  same  age.  But  what's  a  man  to 
do?  I  can't  see  those  children  go  to  the  devil." 

The  howls  of  Benito  had  been  rising  loudly  from 
the  house  for  some  minutes.  They  now  suffered  a 
sudden  check;  there  was  a  quick  step  in  the  hall  and 
Mrs.  Garcia  appeared  in  the  doorway,  red  and  angry. 
Benito  was  at  her  side,  eating  a  large  slice  of  cake. 

"What  d'ye  mean,  Gam  Barren,"  she  said  in  a  high 
key,  "by  making  my  son  cry  that  way?  Ain't  you 


226  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

got  no  better  use  for  your  time  than  to  tease  and  tor 
ment  a  poor,  little,  helpless  boy,  who's  got  no  father 
to  protect  him?" 

"I  wasn't  teasing  him,  Elsie,"  he  answered  quietly; 
"I  only  said  I  wouldn't  take  him  out  this  afternoon 
because  he  behaved  badly." 

"Well,  ain't  that  teasing,  when  you  promised  it  for 
a  week  and  more?  That's  what  I  call  a  snide  trick. 
It's  just  because  you  want  to  go  somewhere  else,  I 
know.  And  so  you  put  it  off  on  that  woman  and  the 
crab.  Much  good  she  is,  anyway ;  I  know  her,  too. 
Never  mind,  my  baby,"  fondly  to  Benito,  stroking  his 
hair  with  her  hand,  "mother'll  take  you  to  see  the 
balloon  herself." 

Benito  jerked  himself  away  from  the  maternal  hand 
and  said,  with  his  mouth  full  of  cake : 

"I  don't  want  to  go  with  you ;  I  want  to  go  with 
Uncle  Gam.  He  lets  me  ride  in  the  goat-cart  and  buy 
peanuts." 

"You'll  go  with  me,"  said  Mrs.  Garcia  with  asperity, 
"or  you'll  not  go  at  all." 

"I  don't  want  to  go  with  you,"  said  Benito,  begin 
ning  to  grow  clamorous ;  "I  don't  have  fun  when  I  go 
with  you." 

"You'll  go  with  me,  or  stay  home  shut  up  in  the 
cupboard  all  afternoon." 

"I  won't;  no,  I  won't." 

Benito  was  both  tearful  and  enraged.  His  mother 
caught  his  hand  and,  holding  it  in  a  tense  grip,  bent 
her  face  down  to  his  and  said  with  set  emphasis : 

"Do  you  want  to  stay  all  afternoon  in  the  kitchen 
cupboard  ?" 


BREAKS    IN    THE   RAIN  227 

He  struggled  to  be  free,  reiterating: 

"No,  I  don't,  and  I  ain't  goin'  to.  I  think  you're 
real  mean  to  me;  I  ain't  goin'  to  go  nowhere  with 
you," 

"You  mean,  ungrateful  little  boy,"  said  his  parent, 
furiously,  shaking  the  hand  she  held.  "Don't  talk 
back  to  me.  You'll  go  with  me  this  afternoon  and  see 
that  balloon  if  I  have  to  drag  you  all  the  way.  Yes, 
you  will." 

"I  won't,"  roared  Benito,  now  enraged  past  all  con 
trol;  and  in  his  frenzy  to  escape  he  kicked  at  his 
mother's  ankles  through  her  intervening  skirts. 

This  was  too  much  for  Mrs.  Garcia's  feelings  as  a 
mother.  She  took  her  free  hand  and  boxed  Benito 
smartly  on  the  ear.  Then  for  a  moment  there  was 
war.  Benito  kicked,  roaring  lustily,  while  his  mother 
cuffed.  The  din  of  combat  was  loud  on  the  balcony, 
and  several  of  the  geranium  pots  were  knocked  over. 

It  remained  for  Barren  to  descend  from  the  railing 
and  drag  the  boy  away  from  his  wrathful  parent. 

"Here,  stop  kicking  your  mother,"  he  said  per 
emptorily;  "that  won't  do  at  all." 

"Then  make  her  stop  slapping  me,"  howled  Benito. 
"Ain't  I  got  a  right  to  kick  ba'ck  ?  I  guess  you'd  kick 
all  right  if  you  was  slapped  that  way." 

"All  right,"  said  his  mother  from  the  doorway, 
"next  time  you  come  to  me,  Benito  Garcia,  to  be  taken 
to  the  circus  or  the  fair,  you'll  find  out  that  you've 
barked  up  the  wrong  tree." 

"I  don't  care,"  responded  Benito  defiantly;  "grand 
ma  or  Uncle  Gam  will." 

Five  minutes  after  her  irate  withdrawal  she  reap- 


228  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

peared,  calm  and  smiling,  the  memory  of  her  recent 
combat  showing  only  in  her  heightened  color,  and 
announced  that  lunch  was  ready. 

At  lunch  the  stranger  was  introduced  to  Mariposa, 
and  she  learned  that  he  was  Isaac  Pierpont,  a  singing 
teacher  living  in  the  house. 


CHAPTER   XII 

DRIFT   AND   CROSSCUT 

"A  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion." 

— ECCLESIASTES. 

On  the  evening  of  the  day  when  Jake  Shackleton 
went  to  his  account  Essex  had  walked  slowly  to  Ber- 
trand's  rotisserie,  his  head  drooped,  the  evening  pa 
per  in  his  hand. 

Two  hours  before  the  cries  of  the  newsboys  an 
nouncing  the  sudden  demise  of  his  chief  had  struck 
on  his  ear,  for  the  first  moment  freezing  him  into  mo 
tionless  amazement.  Standing  under  a  lamp,  he  had 
read  the  short  report,  then  hurried  down  to  the  office  of 
The  Trumpet.  There  in  the  turmoil  and  hubbub  which 
marks  the  first  portentous  movement  of  the  great 
daily  making  ready  to  go  to  press,  he  had  heard  fuller 
details.  The  office  was  in  an  uproar,  shaken  to  its 
foundation  by  the  startling  news,  every  man  and 
woman  ready  with  a  speculation  or  a  rumor  as  to  the 
ultimate  fate  of  The  Trumpet,  on  which  their  own  lit 
tle  fates  hung. 

At  his  table  in  the  far  corner  of  Bertrand's  he  mused 
over  the  various  reports  he  had  heard.  The  death  of 
Shackleton  would  undoubtedly  throw  the  present  make 
up  of  The  Trumpet  out  of  gear.  Its  sale  would  be 

229 


230  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

inevitable.  From  what  he  had  heard  of  him,  Win 
Shackleton  would  be  quite  incapable  of  taking  his 
father's  place  as  proprietor  and  manager  of  the  paper 
that  Jake  Shackleton,  the  man  of  brain  and  initiative, 
was  transforming  into  a  powerful  organ  of  public 
opinion.  And  in  the  general  weeding  out  of  men 
which  would  unquestionably  occur,  why  should  not 
Barry  Essex  mount  to  a  top  place? 

The  Trumpet  had  always  paid  its  capable  men  large 
salaries.  It  was  worth  while  considering.  Essex  had 
now  decided  to  remain  in  San  Francisco,  at  least 
throughout  the  winter.  The  climate  pleased  him;  the 
cosmopolitan  atmosphere  of  the  remote,  picturesque 
city  continued  to  exert  its  charm.  The  very  duck  he 
was  now  eating,  far  beyond  his  purse  in  any  other 
American  city,  was  an  inducement  to  remain.  But 
the  real  one  was  the  woman,  all  the  more  desperately 
desired  because  denied  him.  Her  indignation  had  not 
repelled  him,  but  he  saw  it  would  mean  a  long  wooing. 

Once  in  his  own  room,  he  kindled  the  fire  and  drew 
toward  him  a  pile  of  reference  books  he  had  to  consult 
for  an  article  on  the  great  actresses  of  the  French 
stage  from  Clairon  to  Rachel.  These  light  and  bril 
liant  essays  had  been  an  experiment  of  Shackleton's, 
who  maintained  that  the  Sunday  edition  should  furnish 
food  for  all  types  of  minds.  Essex  had  produced  ex 
actly  the  class  of  matter  wanted,  and  received  for  it  the 
generous  pay  that  the  proprietor  of  The  Trumpet  was 
always  ready  to  give  for  good  work. 

The  reader  was  fluttering  the  leaves  of  the  first  book 
of  the  pile  when  a  knock  at  the  door  stopped  him.  He 
knew  it  was  his  neighbor  across  the  hall,  who  had  been 


DRIFT   AND   CROSSCUT  231 

in  bed  for  over  a  week,  sick  with  bronchitis.  Essex 
had  seen  the  man  several  times  during  his  seclusion  and 
had  conceived  a  carelessly  cynical  interest  in  him. 

When  sober,  he  had  developed  remarkable  anecdotal 
capacity,  which  had  immensely  amused  his  new  ac 
quaintance.  Tales  of  '49  and  the  early  Comstock 
days,  scandals  of  those  now  in  high  places,  discred 
itable  accounts  of  the  making  of  fortunes,  flowed 
from  his  lips  in  a  high-colored  and  diverting  stream. 
If  they  were  lies  they  were  exceedingly  ingenious  ones. 
Essex  saw  material  for  a  dozen  novels  in  the  man's  re 
vealing  and  lurid  recitals.  Of  his  own  personal  his 
tory  he  was  reticent,  merely  saying  that  his  name  was 
George  Harney,  and  his  trade  that  of  job-printer. 
Drink  had  almost  destroyed  him.  Physically  he  was 
a  mere  bunch  of  nerves  covered  by  flabby,  sallow  flesh. 

In  answer  to  Essex's  "come  in,"  the  door  opened 
and  Harney  shambled  into  the  room.  He  was  fully 
dressed,  but  showed  the  evidences  of  illness  in  his. 
hollowed  cheeks  and  eyes,  and  the  yellow  skin  hanging 
flaccid  round  jaw  and  throat.  His  hand  shook  and 
his  gait  was  uncertain,  but  he  was  perfectly  sober. 

"I  came  to  have  a  squint  at  the  paper,  Doc,"  he  said 
in  a  hoarse  voice.  "I  can't  go  out  with  this  blasted 
wheezing  on  me.  Don't  want  to  die  in  my  prime." 

Essex  threw  the  paper  across  the  table  at  him. 

"There's  news  to-night,"  he  said,  taking  up  his  book ; 
"Shackleton's  dead." 

The  man  stopped  as  if  electrified. 

"Shackleton?  Jake  Shackleton?"  he  said  in  a  loud 
voice. 

"Jake    Shackleton,"   answered   Essex,   surprised   at 


232  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

the  startled  astonishment  of  his  face.  "Did  you  know 
him?" 

Harney  snatched  the  paper  and  opened  it  with  an 
unsteady  hand.  He  ran  his  eyes  over  the  lines  under 
the  black-lettered  heading  of  the  first  page. 

"By  gosh !"  he  said  to  himself,  "so  he  is ;  so  he  is !" 

He  sat  down  in  the  chair  at  the  opposite  side  of  the 
table,  smoothed  out  the  sheet  and  read  the  account 
slowly  and  carefully. 

"By  gosh!"  he  said  again  when  he  had  finished, 
"who'd  a  thought  Jake'd  go  off  like  that !" 

"Did  you  know  him  ?"  repeated  Essex. 

"Once  up  in  the  Sierra,  when  we  was  all  mining  up 
there." 

He  spoke  absently  and  sat  looking  into  the  fire  for 
a  moment,  then  said: 

"It's  pretty  tough  luck  to  be  whisked  off  that  way 
when  you  just  got  everything  in  the  palm  of  your 
hand." 

Essex  made  no  reply,  and  after  a  pause  he  added : 

"Between  fifteen  and  twenty  millions  it  says  there," 
indicating  the  paper,  "and  when  I  saw  Jake  Shackleton 
first  you  wouldn't  er  hired  him  to  sweep  down  the 
steps  of  The  Trumpet  office.  But  that  was  twenty-five 
years  ago  at  least." 

"Oh,  Shackleton  was  an  able  man.  There's  no 
question  about  that.  They  were  saying  in  the  office 
to-night  that  twenty  million  is  a  conservative  figure 
to  put  his  money  at." 

"Who  does  it  go  to  ?  Do  you  know  that  ?"  queried 
the  man  by  the  fire. 


DRIFT    AND    CROSSCUT  233 

"Widow  and  children,  I  suppose.  There  are  two 
children.  Don't  amount  to  anything,  I  believe." 

"No;  there  are  three." 

Harney  turned  from  the  fire  and  looked  over  his 
shoulder.  He  was  sitting  in  a  hunched  position,  his 
back  rounded,  his  chin  depressed.  His  black  eyes, 
that  drew  close  to  the  nose,  were  instinct  with  eager 
cunning.  The  skin  across  the  bridge  of  the  nose  was 
drawn  in  wrinkles.  As  he  looked  the  wheezing  of  his 
disturbed  breathing  was  distinctly  audible.  Essex  was 
struck  by  the  sly  and  malevolent  intelligence  of  his 
face. 

"Three  children !"  he  said.  "Well,  I've  always  heard 
the  death  of  a  bonanza  king  was  the  signal  for  a  large 
crop  of  widows  and  orphans  to  take  the  field." 

"There  won't  be  any  widow  this  time.  She's  dead. 
But  the  girl's  alive,  and  I've  seen  her." 

He  accompanied  this  remark  with  a  second  look, 
significant  with  the  same  malicious  intensity  of  mean 
ing.  Then  he  rose  to  his  feet  and  walked  toward  the 
door. 

"Good  night,  Doc,"  he  said  as  he  reached  it;  "ain't 
well  enough  to  talk  to-night." 

Essex  gave  him  a  return  good  night  and  the  door 
closed  on  him.  The  younger  man  cogitated  over  his 
books  for  a  space.  It  did  not  strike  him  as  interesting 
or  remarkable  that  Shackleton  should  have  had  an  un 
acknowledged  child,  of  whose  existence  George  Har 
ney,  the  drunken  job-printer,  knew.  He  was  becom 
ing  accustomed  to  the  extraordinary  intermingling  of 
classes  and  conditions  that  marked  the  pioneer  period 


234  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

of  California  life.  But  should  the  unacknowledged 
child  attempt  to  establish  its  claim  to  part  of  the  great 
estate  left  by  the  bonanza  king,  what  a  complication 
that  might  lead  to !  These  Californians  were  certainly 
a  picturesque  people,  with  their  dramatic  ups  and 
downs  of  fortune,  their  disdain  of  accepted  standards, 
their  indifference  to  tradition,  and  their  magnificently 
disreputable  pasts. 

As  one  of  the  special  writers  of  The  Trumpet,  Essex 
attended  the  funeral  of  his  chief.  He  and  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers  and  Edna,  in  company  with  the  young  woman 
who  did  the  "Fashions  and  Foibles"  column,  were  in 
one  of  the  carriages  that  Mariposa  had  seen  from  the 
hilltop.  Mrs.  Willers  was  silent  on  the  long,  slow 
drive.  She  had  honored  her  chief,  who  had  been  just 
to  her.  Miss  Peebles,  the  "Fashions  and  Foibles" 
young  woman,  was  so  engrossed  by  her  fears  that  a 
change  of  ownership  in  The  Trumpet  would  rob  her  of 
her  employment  that  she  could  talk  of  nothing  else. 
To  Edna,  the  sensation  of  being  in  a  carriage  was  so 
novel  it  occupied  her  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  mat 
ters,  and  she  looked  out  of  the  window  with  a  face  of 
sparkling  interest. 

That  evening,  after  the  funeral,  Essex  was  prepar 
ing  to  work  late.  He  had  "gutted"  the  pile  of  books, 
and  with  their  contents  well  assimilated  was  ready  to 
write  his  three  columns.  There  was  no  car  line  on  the 
street,  and  traffic  at  that  hour  on  that  quiet  thorough 
fare  was  over  for  the  day.  For  an  hour  he  wrote 
easily  and  fluently.  The  sheets,  glistening  with  damp 
ink,  were  pushed  in  front  of  him  in  a  careless  pile. 
Now  and  then  he  paused  to  consult  his  books,  which 


DRIFT   AND   CROSSCUT  235 

were  arranged  round  him  on  the  table,  open  at  the 
places  he  needed  for  reference.  The  smoke  wreaths 
were  thick  round  his  head  and  the  room  was  hot.  It 
was  nearly  ten  o'clock  when  he  heard  the  noisy  en 
trance  of  his  fellow  lodger.  Harney  was  evidently 
sufficiently  well  to  go  to  work  again  and  to  come  home 
drunk.  Essex  listened  with  suspended  pen  and  a  half- 
smile  on  his  dark  face,  which  turned  to  a  frown  as  he 
realized  that  the  stumbling  feet  had  turned  his  way. 
The  knock  on  the  door  came  next,  and  simultaneously 
it  opened  and  Harney's  head  was  thrust  in. 

"What  the  devil  do  you  want?"  said  the  scribe,  sit 
ting  erect,  his  pipe  in  his  hand,  the  other  waving 
the  smoke  strata  that  hung  before  his  face. 

"Let  me  come  and  get  warm  a  minute.  I'm  wheez 
ing  again,  and  my  room's  cold  as  a  tomb.  Don't  mind 
me — all  I  want  is  to  set  before  the  fire  for  a  spell." 

He  sidled  in  before  the  permission  was  granted  and 
sank  down  in  the  armchair,  hitching  it  nearer  to  the 
grate.  He  was  a  man  to  whom  intoxication  lent  a 
curiously  amiable  and  humorous  quality.  The  ugli 
ness  and  evil  that  were  so  evidently  part  of  his  nature 
were  not  so  apparent,  and  he  became  cheerful,  almost 
genial. 

Sitting  close  to  the  fire,  he  held  out  his  hands  to  the 
blaze,  then,  stealing  a  look  at  Essex  over  his  shoulder, 
saw  that  he  was  refilling  his  pipe. 

"Be'n  to  the  funeral  ?"  he  said. 

Essex  grunted  an  assent. 

"The  family  there?" 

"None  of  the  ladies;  only  Win  Shackleton." 

Harney  was  silent;  then,  with  the  greatest  care,  he 


236  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

took  up  a  piece  of  coal  and  set  it  on  the  fire.  The 
action  required  all  the  ingenuity  of  which  he  was  mas 
ter.  His  body  responded  to  his  intoxication,  while, 
save  for  an  unusual  fluency  of  speech,  his  mind  ap 
peared  to  remain  unaffected.  After  he  had  set  the 
coal  in  place  he  looked  again  at  Essex,  who  was  staring 
vacantly  at  him,  thinking  of  the  second  part  of  his 
article. 

"Did  you  notice  a  tall,  fine-looking  young  lady  there 
with  dark  red  hair?"  said  Harney,  without  removing 
his  glassy  gaze  from  the  man  at  the  table. 

Essex  did  not  move  his  eyes,  but  their  absent  fixity 
suddenly  seemed  to  snap  into  a  change  of  focus  be 
tokening  attention.  Gazing  at  Harney,  he  answered 
coldly : 

"No;  I  saw  no  one  like  that.  To  whom  are  you 
referring?" 

"Oh,  I  dunno,  I  dunno,"  responded  the  other  with 
a  clumsy  shrug  of  his  shoulders,  and  turning  back  to 
the  fire  over  which  he  cowered. 

"But  you  know  her  anyhow,"  he  added,  half  to  him 
self. 

"Whom  do  I  know  ?    Turn  around." 

The  man  turned,  looking  a  little  defiant. 

"Now,  what  are  you  trying  to  say?" 

"I  ain't  tryin'  to  say  nuthin'.  All  I  done  is  to  ask 
yer  if  yer  saw  a  lady — tall,  with  red  hair — at  the  fu 
neral.  You  know  her,  'cause  I've  seen  you  with  her." 

"Who  is  she?" 

"Well,"  slowly  and  uneasily,  "she's  called  Moreau." 

"You  mean  Miss  Mariposa  Moreau,  the  daughter  of 
a  mining  man,  who  died  last  spring  in  Santa  Barbara  ?" 


DRIFT   AND    CROSSCUT  237 

"Yes ;  that's  her  all  right.  She's  called  Moreau,  but 
it  ain't  her  name." 

"Moreau  isn't  her  name  ?    What  is  her  name,  then  ?" 

"I  dunno,"  he  spoke  stubbornly  and  turned  back  to 
the  fire. 

"Turn  back  here,"  said  Essex  in  a  suddenly  authori 
tative  tone ;  "explain  to  me  what  you  mean  by  that." 

"I  don't  mean  nuthin',"  said  the  other,  looking  sul 
lenly  defiant,  "and  I  don't  know  nuthin'  only  that  that 
ain't  her  true  name." 

"What  is  her  name?  Answer  me  at  once,  and  no 
fooling." 

"I  dunno." 

Essex  rose.  Harney,  looking  frightened,  staggered 
to  his  feet,  clutching  the  mantelpiece.  He  half-raised 
his  arm  as  if  expecting  to  be  struck  and  said  loudly : 

"If  you  want  to  know  ask  Shackleton's  widow. 
She  knows." 

Essex  stood  a  few  paces  from  him,  suddenly  stilled 
by  the  phrase.  The  drunkard,  alarmed  and  yet  de 
fiant,  could  only  dimly  understand  what  the  expres 
sion  on  the  face  of  the  man  before  him  meant. 

"Sit  down,"  said  Essex  quietly;  "I'm  not  going  to 
touch  you.  I'm  going  to  get  some  whisky.  That'll 
tone  you  up  a  bit.  The  bronchitis  has  taken  it  out  of 
you  more  than  you  think." 

He  went  to  a  cupboard  and  brought  out  a  bottle  and 
glasses.  Pouring  some  whisky  into  one,  he  pushed  it 
toward  Harney. 

"There,  that'll  brace  you  up.  You'll  feel  more  your 
self  in  a  minute." 

He  diluted  his  own  with  water  and  only  touched  the 


238  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

glass's  rim  to  his  lips.  His  eyes,  glistening  and  intent, 
were  on  the  drunkard's  now  darkly  flushing  face.  The 
glass  rattled  against  the  table  as  Harney  set  it  down. 

"That  puts  mettle  into  me  again.  Makes  me  feel 
like  the  old  times  before  the  malaria  got  into  my  bones. 
Malaria  was  my  ruin.  Got  it  in  the  Sierra  mining. 
People  think  it's  drink  that  done  it,  but  it's  malaria." 

"That  was  when  you  knew  Moreau?  What  sort  of 
man  was  he?" 

"Poor  sort;  not  any  grit.  Had  a  good  claim  up 
there  beyond  Placerville,  he  and  I.  Took  out  's  much 
as  eight  thousand  in  that  first  summer.  Moreau 
stayed  by  it,  but  I  quit.  Both  had  our  reasons." 

"And  Miss  Moreau,  you  say,  is  not  Dan  Moreau's 
daughter.  Is  she  a  step-daughter?" 

"Well — in  a  sort  of  a  way  you  might  say  so.  Any 
way,  she  ain't  got  no  legal  right  to  that  name." 

"I  didn't  know  the  mother  was  a  widow  when  she 
married  Moreau?" 

"She  weren't.  She  married  twict,  and  she  weren't 
divorced.  There  ain't  but  two  people  in  the  world 
that  knows  it.  One's  Jake  Shackleton's  widow," — 
he  rose,  and,  putting  an  unsteady  hand  on  the  table, 
leaned  forward  and  almost  whispered  into  his  inter 
locutor's  face, — "and  the  other's  me." 

"Are  you  trying  to  tell  me,"  said  Essex  quietly,  "that 
Miss  Moreau  is  Jake  Shackleton's  daughter?" 

"That's  what  she  is."  The  man  turned  round  like  a 
character  on  the  stage  and  swept  the  room  with  an  in 
vestigating  look — "And  she's  more'n  that.  She's  his 
lawful  daughter,  born  in  wedlock." 

The  two  faces  stared  at  each  other.     The  drunken 


DRIFT   AND    CROSSCUT  239 

man  was  not  too  far  beyond  himself  to  realize  the  im 
portance  of  what  he  was  saying.  In  a  second's  retro 
spect  Essex's  mind  flew  back  over  the  hitherto  puz 
zling  interest  Shackleton  had  taken  in  Mariposa 
Moreau.  Could  it  be  possible  the  man  before  him  was 
telling  the  truth  ? 

"How  does  she  come  to  be  known  as  Moreau's 
daughter?  Why  didn't  Shackleton  acknowledge  her 
if  she  was  his  legitimate  child  ?  That's  a  fairy  tale." 

"There  was  complications.  Have  you  ever  heard 
that  Shackleton  was  once  a  Mormon?" 

Essex  had  heard  the  gossip  which  had  persistently 
followed  Shackleton's  ascending  course.  He  nodded 
his  head,  gazing  at  Harney,  a  presentiment  of  coming 
revelations  holding  him  silent. 

"Well,  that's  true.  He  was.  I  seen  him  when  he 
was.  Jake  Shackleton  crossed  the  Sierra  with  two 
wives.  One — the  first  one — was  the  lady  who  died 
here  a  rftonth  ago,  and  passed  as  Mrs.  Moreau.  The 
other's  the  widow.  But  she  was  the  second  wife.  She 
didn't  have  no  children  then.  But  the  first  wife  had 
one,  a  girl  baby,  born  on  the  plains  in  Utah.  It  weren't 
three  weeks  old  when  I  seen  it." 

"Where  did  you  see  it?" 

"In  the  Sierra  back  of  Hangtown.  Me  and  Dan 
Moreau  was  workin'  a  stream  bed  there.  And  one  day 
two  emigrants,  a  man  and  a  woman,  with  a  sick  woman 
inside  the  wagon,  came  down  from  the  summit.  They 
was  Jake  Shackleton  and  his  two  wives,  and  they  was 
the  worst  looking  outfit  you've  ever  clapped  your  eyes 
on.  They  was  pretty  near  dead.  One  er  their  horses 
did  die,  in  front  of  our  cabin,  and  the  sick  woman — 


240  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

she  that  afterwards  was  called  Mrs.  Moreau — was  too 
beat  out  to  move  on.  Shackleton,  who  didn't  care  who 
died,  so  long's  they  got  into  the  settlements,  calkalated 
to  make  her  ride  a  spell,  and  when  the  other  horse 
dropped  make  her  walk.  She  was  the  orneriest  look- 
in'  scarecrow  you  ever  seen,  and  she  hadn't  no  more 
life'n  a  mummy.  But  she  was  ready  to  do  just  what 
they  said.  She  was  just  so  beat  out.  And  then 
Moreau — he  was  just  that  kind  of  a  fool — " 

He  paused  and  looked  at  Essex,  with  his  beady,  dark 
eyes  glistening  with  a  sense  of  the  importance  of  his 
communication.  His  hand  sought  the  glass  and  he 
drained  it.  Then  he  leaned  forward  to  deliver  the 
climax  of  his  story : — 

"Bought  her  from  Shackleton  for  a  pair  of  horses." 
"Bought  her  for  a  pair  of  horses !     How  could  he  ?" 
"I'm  not  sayin'  how  he  could;  I'm  sayin'  what  he 
did." 

"What  did  he  do  it  for?" 

"The  Lord  knows.  He  was  that  kind  of  a  fool.  We 
had  her  in  the  cabin  sick  for  days,  with  me  and  him 
waitin'  on  her  hand  and  foot,  and  the  cussed  baby 
yellin'  like  a  coyote.  She  wasn't  good  for  anything. 
Just  ust  ter  lie  round  sick  and  peaked  and  sorter  pine. 
But  Moreau  got  a  crazy  liking  for  her,  and  he  was 
sot  on  the  baby  same's  if  it  was  his  own.  I  caught 
on  pretty  soon  to  the  way  the  cat  was  goin'  to  jump. 
I  lit  out  and  left  'em." 

"Why  did  you  leave  if  the  claim  was  good  ?" 
"It  weren't  no  good  when  no  one  worked  it,  and 
there  weren't  more'n  enough  in  it  for  Moreau  alone, 
with  a  woman  and  a  baby  on  his  hands.     He  said  first 


DRIFT   AND   CROSSCUT  241 

off  he  was  only  goin'  to  get  her  cured  up  and  send  her 
to  the  Eldorado  Hotel  to  be  a  waitress,  but  I  seen  fast 
enough  what  was  goin'  to  happen.  And  it  did  happen. 
They  was  snowed  in  up  there  all  winter.  In  the  spring 
he  took  her  into  Hangtown  and  married  her — said  he 
was  marryin'  a  widow  woman  whose  husband  died  on 
the  plains.  I  heard  that  afterwards  from  some  er  the 
boys,  but  it  weren't  my  business  to  give  'em  away.  So 
I  shut  my  mouth  and  ain't  opened  it  till  now.  But 
Moreau's  dead,  and  the  woman's  dead,  and  now 
Shackleton's  dead.  There  ain't  no  one  what  knows  but 
me  and  Shackleton's  widow." 

"And  what  makes  you  think  this  is  the  same  child? 
The  baby  you  saw  may  have  died  and  this  may  be  a 
child  born  a  year  or  two  later." 

"It  ain't.  It's  the  same.  There  weren't  never  any 
other  children.  I  kep'  my  eye  on  'em.  Moreau  was 
mining  round  among  the  camps  and  afterward  was  in 
Sacramento  for  a  spell,  and  I  was  round  in  them  places 
off  and  on  myself.  I  saw  him,  but  I  dodged  him 
'cause  I  knew  he  didn't  want  to  run  up  against  me, 
knowin'  as  how  I  was  onter  what  he'd  done.  He  was 
safe  for  me.  But  I  seen  the  girl  often ;  seen  her  grow 
up.  And  I  knew  her  in  a  minute  the  day  I  saw  you 
walkin'  with  her  on  Sutter  Street,  and  I  thinks  to  my 
self,  'You're  with  the  biggest  heiress  in  San  Francisco 
if  you  and  she  only  knew  it.'  And  that's  what  she  is, 
if  there  was  somethin'  else  but  my  word  to  prove  it." 

Essex  sat  pushed  back  from  the  table,  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  his  pipe  nipped  between  his  teeth,  his  face 
partly  obscured  by  the  floating  clouds  of  smoke  that 
hung  about  his  head. 


242  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

A  first-rate  story,"  he  said  slowly ;  "have  some  more 
whisky." 

And  he  pushed  the  bottle  toward  Harney,  who  seized 
it  and  fumblingly  poured  the  fiery  liquor  into  the  glass. 

"And  it's  true,"  he  said  hoarsely — "every  blamed 
word." 

He  drank  what  he  had  poured  out,  set  down  the 
glass  and  stared  at  Essex  with  his  face  puckered  into 
its  expression  of  evil  cunning. 

"And  she  don't  know  anything  about  it,  does  she?" 
he  asked. 

"If  you  mean  Miss  Moreau,  she  certainly  appears  to 
think  she  is  the  child  of  the  man  who  brought  her  up." 

"That's  what  I  heard.  But  Shackleton,  when 
Moreau  died,  was  goin'  to  do  the  square  thing  by  her. 
At  least,  I  heard  talk  of  his  sendin'  her  to  Europe  to  be 
a  singer.  Ain't  it  so?" 

"I  heard  something  about  it  myself.  But  I'm  no 
authority." 

There  was  a  pause.  Harney  settled  back  in  his 
chair.  The  room  was  exceedingly  hot,  and  impreg 
nated  with  the  odor  of  whisky  and  the  smoke  from 
Essex's  pipe. 

"He  couldn't  acknowledge  her.  It  would  er  given 
the  other  children  too  big  a  black  eye.  But  it  seemed 
like  he  wanted  to  square  things  up  when  he  was  taken 
off  suddent  like  that." 

He  paused.  The  other,  smoking,  with  frowning 
brows  and  wide  eyes,  made  no  response,  his  own 
thoughts  holding  him  in  tense  immobility. 

"And  the  other  wife  wouldn't  er  stood  it,  anyway. 
She's  a  pretty  competent  woman,  I  guess.  Oh,  he 


DRIFT   AND   CROSSCUT  243 

couldn't  have  acknowledged  her,  nohow.  But  she's 
his  legitimate  daughter,  all  right.  She's  the  lawful 
heir  to — most  er  them — millions.  She's — " 

His  voice  broke  and  trailed  off  into  silence,  which 
was  suddenly  interrupted  by  a  guttural  snort  and  then 
heavy,  regular  breathing.  Essex  rose,  and,  going  to 
the  window,  opened  it.  A  keen-edged  breeze  of  air 
entered,  seeming  all  the  fresher  from  the  dense  atmos 
phere  of  the  room.  Its  hurried  entrance  sent  the 
smoke  wreaths  skurrying  about  in  fantastic  whorls  and 
curls.  The  dying  fire  threw  out  a  frightened  flame. 

Essex  moved  toward  it,  saying  as  he  approached : 

"Yes ;  it's  a  good  story.  You  ought  to  be  a  novelist, 
Harney." 

There  was  no  answer,  and,  looking  into  the  chair,  he 
saw  that  Harney  had  fallen  into  a  sodden  sleep,  curled 
against  the  chair-back,  his  chin  sunk  on  his  breast,  the 
hollows  in  his  face  looking  black  in  the  hard  light  of 
the  gas.  The  younger  man  gazed  at  him  for  a  mo 
ment  with  an  expression  of  slight,  cold  disgust,  then 
turned  back  to  the  table  and  sat  down. 

He  wrote  no  more,  but  sat  motionless,  his  eyes  fixed 
on  vacancy,  the  thick,  curling  smoke  oozing  from  the 
bowl  of  his  pipe  and  issuing  from  between  his  lips. 
His  thoughts  reviewed  every  part  of  the  story  he  had 
heard.  He  felt  certain  of  its  truth.  The  drunken 
job-printer  had  never  imagined  it. 

It  explained  many  things  that  before  had  puzzled 
him.  Why  the  Moreaus,  even  in  the  days  of  their 
affluence,  had  lived  in  such  uneventful  quietude,  bring 
ing  up  their  beautiful  and  talented  daughter  in  a  jeal 
ous  and  unusual  seclusion.  It  explained  Shackleton's 


244  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

interest  in  the  girl.  He  even  saw  now,  recalling  the 
two  faces,  the  likeness  that  the  father  himself  had 
seen  in  Mariposa's  firmly  modeled  jaw  and  chin,  which 
did  not  belong  to  the  soft,  feminine  prettiness  of  Lucy. 

It  must  be  true. 

And,  being  true,  what  possibilities  might  it  not  de 
velop?  Mrs.  Shackleton  knew  it,  too — that  this  pen 
niless  girl  was  the  bonanza  king's  eldest  and  only 
legitimate  child,  with  power,  if  not  entirely  to  dispos 
sess  her  own  children,  at  least  to  claim  the  lion's  share 
of  the  vast  fortune.  If  Mariposa  had  proof  of  her 
mother's  marriage  to  Shackleton  and  of  her  own  iden 
tity  as  the  child  of  that  marriage,  she  could  rise  and 
claim  her  heritage — her  part  of  the  twenty  millions ! 

The  thought,  and  what  it  opened  before  him,  dizzied 
him.  He  drank  some  of  the  diluted  whisky  in  the 
glass  beside  him  and  sat  on  motionless.  It  was  evi 
dent  Mariposa  did  not  know.  She  had  been  brought 
up  in  ignorance  of  the  whole  extraordinary  story.  The 
man  and  woman  she  had  been  taught  to  regard  as  her 
parents  had  committed  an  offense  against  the  law, 
which  they  had  hidden  from  her,  secure  in  the  thought 
that  the  other  participants  in  the  strange  proceeding 
would  never  dare  to  confess. 

The  minutes  and  hours  ticked  by  and  Essex  still  sat 
thinking,  while  the  drunkard  breathed  stertorously  in 
his  heavy  sleep,  and  the  coals  dropped  softly  in  the 
grate  as  the  fire  sank  into  clinkers  and  ashes. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   SEED   OF   BANQUO 

"What  says  the  married  woman?" 

— SHAKESPEARE. 

As  soon  as  Mrs.  Shackleton  was  sufficiently  recov 
ered,  the  family  had  moved  from  Menlo  Park  to  their 
town  house. 

The  long  work  of  settling  up  the  great  estate  which 
had  been  left  to  the  widow  and  her  children,  required 
their  presence  in  the  city,  and  the  shock  which  Bessie 
had  suffered  in  finding  her  husband  dead,  had  rendered 
the  country  place  unbearable  to  her. 

The  day  after  the  funeral  the  women  had  moved  to 
town.  Win,  however,  remained  at  Menlo  Park,  to  go 
over  such  documents  of  his  father's  as  had  been  left 
there.  Shackleton  had  lived  so  much  at  his  country 
place  for  the  last  two  or  three  years  that  many  of 
his  papers  and  letters  were  kept  in  the  library,  which 
had  been  his  especial  sanctum. 

Among  these,  the  son  had  come  upon  a  small  pack 
age  of  letters,  which,  fastened  together  with  an  elastic, 
and  bearing  a  note  of  their  contents  on  one  end,  had 
roused  his  interest.  They  were  the  letters  exchanged 
between  his  father  and  the  chief  of  the  detective  bureau 
when  the  latter  had  been  commissioned  to  locate  the 
widow  and  daughter  of  Daniel  Moreau. 

245 


246  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Shackleton,  a  man  of  exceedingly  methodical  habits, 
had  kept  copies  of  his  letters.  There  were  only  seven  of 
them  altogether — three  from  him ;  four  in  reply.  The 
first  ones  were  short,  only  a  few  lines,  containing  the 
request  to  find  the  ladies  who,  the  writer  understood, 
were  in  San  Francisco,  and  ascertain  their  circum 
stances  and  position.  Then  came  the  acknowledgment 
of  that,  and  then  in  a  few  days,  the  answer  stating  the 
whereabouts  of  Mrs.  Moreau  and  her  daughter,  their 
means,  and  such  small  facts  about  them  as  that  the 
mother  was  in  delicate  health  and  the  daughter  "a 
handsome,  accomplished,  and  estimable  young  lady." 

Win  looked  over  this  correspondence,  puzzled  and 
wondering.  He  remembered  the  girl  he  had  seen  in 
The  Trumpet  office  that  dark  afternoon,  and  how  the 
office  boy  had  told  him  it  was  a  Miss  Moreau,  a  friend 
of  Mrs.  Willers,  and  a  singer.  What  motive  could  his 
father  have  had  in  seeking  out  this  girl  and  her  mother 
in  this  secret  and  effectual  way?  He  read  over  the 
letters  again.  Moreau  had  died  in  Santa  Barbara  in 
the  spring,  the  widow  and  her  daughter  had  then 
come  to  San  Francisco,  and  by  the  wording  of  the 
second  letter  he  inferred  that  his  father  had  been  ig 
norant  of  their  means,  and  of  the  girl's  appearance, 
style  and  character.  It  was  evidently  not  the  result 
of  an  interest  in  people  he  had  once  known  and  then 
lost  sight  of.  It  seemed  to  be  an  interest,  for  some 
outside  reason,  in  two  women  of  whom  he  knew  abso 
lutely  nothing. 

Win  had  heard  that  his  father  contemplated  offer 
ing  a  musical  education  to  some  singing  girl,  of  whom 
the  young  man  knew  nothing,  and  had  seen  only  for  a 


247 

moment  that  day  in  The  Trumpet  office.  This  was  un 
doubtedly  the  girl.  But  Shackleton  evidently  had  not 
heard  of  her  through  Mrs.  Willers,  who  was  known 
to  be  an  energetic  boomer  of  obscure  genius.  He  had 
hunted  her  out  himself;  had  undoubtedly  had  some 
ulterior  interest  in,  or  knowledge  of  her  some  time  be 
fore  the  day  Win  had  seen  her.  It  was  odd,  the  boy 
thought;  meditating  over  the  correspondence.  What 
could  have  led  his  father  to  search  for,  and  then  at 
tempt  to  assist,  a  woman  who  seemed  to  be  a  complete 
stranger  to  him?  It  looked  like  the  secret  paying  of 
an  old  debt. 

Win  put  the  letters  in  his  pocket  and  went  up  to 
town.  There  was  more  work  for  him  to  do  now  than 
there  had  ever  been  before,  and  he  rose  to  it  with  a 
spirit  and  energy  that  surprised  himself.  Neither  he 
nor  any  one  else  had  ever  realized  how  paralyzing  to 
him  had  been  his  father's  cold  scorn.  From  boyhood, 
Win  had  felt  himself  to  be  an  aggravating  failure. 
The  elder  man  had  not  scrupled  to  make  him  under 
stand  his  inferiority.  The  mere  presence  of  his  father 
seemed  to  numb  his  brain  and  make  his  tongue  stam 
mer  over  the  simplest  phrases.  Now,  he  felt  himself 
free  and  full  of  energy,  as  though  bands  that  had 
cramped  his  mind  and  confined  his  body  were  broken. 
His  old  attitude  of  posing  as  a  fast  young  man  of 
fashion  lost  its  charm.  Life  grew  suddenly  to  mean 
something,  to  be  full  of  use  and  purpose. 

He  was  left  very  much  to  himself,  his  mother  being 
still  too  much  broken  to  attend  to  business,  and  Maud 
being  absorbed  in  her  affair  with  Latimer,  which  had 
recently  culminated  in  a  secret  engagement.  This  she 


248  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

had  been  afraid  to  tell  to  her  domineering  father  and 
ambitious  mother,  and  her  opportunities  of  seeing  her 
fiance  had  been  of  the  briefest  until  now.  Latimer 
haunted  the  house  of  evenings,  when  Bessie  was  lying 
on  the  sofa  in  an  upstairs  boudoir  and  Win  was  locked 
in  his  father's  study  going  over  the  interminable  docu 
ments. 

The  first  darkness  of  her  grief  and  horror  past,  Bes 
sie,  in  her  seclusion,  thought  of  many  things.  One  of 
these  was  the  fate  of  Mariposa  Moreau.  The  bonanza 
king's  widow,  with  all  her  faults,  had  that  lavish  and 
reckless  generosity,  where  money  was  concerned,  that 
marked  the  early  Calif ornians.  This  forceful  woman, 
who  had  made  the  blighting  journey  across  the  plains 
without  complaint,  faced  the  fierce  hardships  of  her 
early  married  life  with  a  smile,  borne  her  children  amid 
the  rude  discomforts  of  remote  mining  camps,  was 
an  adept  in  the  art  of  luxurious  living.  She  knew 
by  instinct  how  to  be  magnificent,  and  one  of  her  mag 
nificences  was  the  careless  munificence  of  her  gen 
erosity. 

Now,  she  felt  for  Mariposa.  She  knew  Shackleton's 
plans  for  her,  and  realized  the  girl's  disappointment. 
In  her  heart  she  had  been  bitterly  jealous  of  the  other 
wife's  child,  who  had  the  beauty  and  gifts  her  own 
lacked.  It  would  be  to  everybody's  advantage  to  re 
move  the  girl  to  another  country  and  sphere.  And 
because  her  husband  had  died  there  was  was  no  rea 
son  why  his  plans  should  remain  unfulfilled.  Though 
Shackleton  had  assured  her  that  the.  girl  knew  noth 
ing,  though  every  one  connected  with  the  shameful  bar 
gain  but  herself  was  dead,  it  was  best  to  be  prudent, 


THE   SEED    OF   BANQUO  249 

especially  when  prudence  was  the  course  most  agreea 
ble  to  all  concerned.  She  would  rest  easier ;  her  chil 
dren  would  seem  more  secure  in  their  positions  and 
possessions,  if  Mariposa  Moreau,  well  provided  for, 
were  safe  in  Paris  studying  singing. 

When  she  was  fully  decided  as  to  the  wisdom  of 
her  course,  she  wrote  Mariposa  a  short  but  friendly 
letter,  speaking  of  her  knowledge  of  Mr.  Shackleton's 
plans  for  her  advancement,  of  her  desire  to  carry  out 
her  late  husband's  wishes,  and  naming  a  day  and  hour 
at  which  she  begged  the  young  girl  to  call  on  her.  It 
was  a  simple  matter  to  ascertain  Miss  Moreau's  ad 
dress  from  Mrs.  Willers,  and  the  letter  was  duly  sent. 

It  roused  wrath  in  its  recipient.  Mariposa  was  learn 
ing  worldly  wisdom  at  a  rate  of  which  her  tardy  devel 
opment  had  not  given  promise.  Great  changes  were 
taking  place  in  her  simple  nature.  She  had  been 
wakened  to  life  with  savage  abruptness.  Dormant 
characteristics,  passions  unsuspected,  had  risen  to  the 
surface.  The  powerful  feelings  of  a  rich,  but  unde 
veloped  womanhood  had  suddenly  been  shaken  from 
their  sleep  by  a  grip  of  the  hand  of  destiny.  The  un- 
familiarity  of  a  bitter  anger  against  the  Shackletons 
struggled  with  the  creeping  disgust  of  Essex,  that 
grew  daily. 

Morning  after  morning  she  woke  when  the  first  gray 
light  was  faintly  defining  the  squares  of  the  windows. 
The  leaden  sense  of  wretchedness  that  seemed  to  draw 
her  out  of  sleep,  gave  place  to  the  living  hatred  and 
shame  that  the  upheaval  of  her  life  had  left  behind. 
She  watched  the  golden  wheat-ears  dimly  glimmering 
on  the  pale  walls,  while  she  lay  and  thought  of  all  she 


250  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

had  learned  of  life,  her  faith  and  happy  ignorance  de 
stroyed  forever. 

Six  weeks  ago  Mrs.  Shackleton's  letter  would  have 
represented  no  more  to  her  than  what  its  words  ex 
pressed.  Now,  she  saw  Bessie's  anxiety  to  be  rid  of 
her,  to  push  her  out  of  sight  as  a  menace.  How  much 
more  readily  would  the  widow  have  gone  to  work, 
with  what  zest  of  alarm  and  energy,  would  she  have 
contrived  for  her  expulsion,  had  she  guessed  what 
Mariposa  knew.  The  girl  vacillated  for  a  day,  hating 
the  thought  of  an  interview  with  any  member  of  the 
family  whose  wrongs  to  her  beloved  mother  were 
seared  scars  in  her  brain ;  but  finally  concluding  that 
it  would  be  better  to  end  her  connection  with  them  by 
an  interview  with  Mrs.  Shackleton,  she  answered  the 
letter,  stating  that  she  would  come  at  the  appointed 
hour. 

Two  days  later,  at  the  time  set  in  the  afternoon,  she 
stood  in  the  small  reception-room,  to  the  left  of  the 
wide  marble  hall,  waiting.  The  hushed  splendor  of 
the  house  would  have  impressed  and  awed  her  at  any 
other  time.  But  to-day  her  heart  beat  loud  and  her 
brain  was  preoccupied  with  its  effort  to  keep  her  pur 
pose  clear,  and  yet  not  to  be  angered  into  revealing 
too  much.  The  vast  lower  floor  was  loftier  and  more 
spacious  than  anything  she  had  ever  seen  before. 
There  were  glimpses  through  many  doors,  and  arti 
ficial  elongations  of  perspective  by  means  of  mirrors. 
The  long  receding  vista  was  touched  with  gleams 
of  light  on  parquet  flooring,  reflections  on  the  gray 
surfaces  of  mirrors,  the  curves  of  porcelain  vases,  the 
bosses  of  gilded  frames.  Over  all  hung  the  scent  of 


THE    SEED    OF   BANQUO  251 

flowers,  that  were  massed  here  and  there  in  Chinese 
bowls. 

Bessie's  step,  and  the  accompanying  rustle  of  brush 
ing  silks,  brought  the  girl  to  her  feet,  rigid  and  cold. 
The  widow  swept  into  the  room  with  extended  hand. 
She  was  richly  and  correctly  garbed  in  lusterless 
black,  that  sent  out  the  nervous  whisperings  of  crushed 
silks  and  exhaled  a  faint  perfume.  It  was  impossible 
to  ignore  the  hand,  and  Mariposa  touched  it  with  her 
own  for  a  minute.  She  had  seen  Bessie  only  once 
before,  on  the  evening  of  the  opera.  The  change 
wrought  in  her  by  grief  and  illness  was  noticeable. 
Her  fine,  healthy  color  had  faded ;  her  eyes  were  dark 
ened,  and  there  were  many  deep  lines  on  her  forehead 
and  about  her  mouth.  Nevertheless,  a  casual  eye 
would  have  still  noticed  her  as  a  woman  of  vigor, 
mental  and  physical.  It  was  easy  to  understand  how 
she  had  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  her  husband 
in  his  fight  for  fortune. 

She  motioned  Mariposa  to  a  chair  facing  the  win 
dow,  and  studied  her  as  she  glibly  accomplished  the 
commonplaces  of  greeting.  Her  heart  drew  together 
with  a  renewed  spasm  of  jealousy  as  she  noted  the 
girl's  superiority  to  her  own  daughter.  What  subtly 
finer  qualities  had  Lucy  had,  that  her  child  should  be 
thus  distinguished  from  the  other  children  of  Jake 
Shackleton?  The  indignation  working  against  this 
woman  gave  a  last  touch  of  stateliness  to  poor  Mari- 
posa's  natural  dignity  of  demeanor.  She  seemed  to 
belong,  by  nature  and  birth,  to  these  princely  surround 
ings,  which  completely  dwarfed  Maud,  and  even  made 
the  adaptive  Bessie  look  common. 


252  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"My  husband,"  said  the  elder  woman,  when  the  be 
ginnings  of  the  conversation  were  disposed  of,  "was 
very  much  interested  in  you.  He  knew  your  father, 
Dan  Moreau,  very  well." 

Mariposa  was  becoming  used  to  this  phrase  and 
could  listen  to  it  without  the  stare  of  surprise,  or  the 
blush  of  consciousness. 

"So  Mr.  Shackleton  told  me,"  she  answered. 

"Your  father" — Bessie  looked  down  at  the  deeply- 
bordered  handkerchief  in  her  hand — "was  a  man  of 
great  kindliness  and  generosity.  Mr.  Shackleton  knew 
him  in  the  Sierras,  mining,  a  long  time  ago,  when  he" 
— she  paused,  not  from  embarrassment,  but  in  order  to 
choose  her  words  carefully — "was  very  kind  to  my  hus 
band  and  others  of  our  party.  It  was  an  obligation 
Mr.  Shackleton  never  forgot." 

Mariposa  could  make  no  answer.  Shackleton  had 
never  spoken  to  her  with  this  daring.  Bessie  looked 
at  her  for  a  response,  and  saw  her  with  her'  eyes  on 
the  ground,  pale  and  slightly  frowning.  She  wanted 
to  sweep  away  any  possible  suspicion  from  the  girl's 
mind  by  making  her  understand  that  the  attitude  of 
the  family  toward  her  rose  from  gratitude  for  a  past 
benefit. 

"Mr.  Shackleton,"  she  went  on,  "often  talked  to 
me  about  his  plans  for  you.  He  wanted  to  have  you 
study  in  Paris,  under  some  teacher  Lepine  spoke  to  him 
about.  I  understand  you've  got  a  remarkable  voice. 
I  wanted,  several  times,  to  hear  you,  but  it  couldn't 
seem  to  be  managed,  living  in  the  country,  and  always 
so  busy.  In  his  sudden — passing  away,  all  these  plans 


THE   SEED    OF   BANQUO  253 

came  to  an  end.  He  hadn't  regularly  arranged  any 
thing.  There  were  such  a  lot  of  delays." 

Mariposa  nodded,  then  feeling  that  she  must  say 
something,  she  murmured: 

"My  mother  died.  I  was  not  well,  and  I  couldn't 
see  him." 

"Exactly,  I  understand  just  how  it  was.  And  it 
wasn't  a  bit  fair,  that  simply  because  you  didn't  happen 
to  be  able  to  go  to  the  office  at  that  time,  you  should 
lose  your  chance  of  a  musical  education  and  all  that 
might  have  come  out  of  it.  Now,  Miss  Moreau,  it's 
my  intention  to  carry  out  my  husband's  wishes." 

She  looked  at  Mariposa,  not  smiling,  nor  conde 
scending,  but  with  a  hard  earnestness.  The  girl  raised 
her  eyes  and  the  two  glances  met. 

"His  wishes  with  regard  to  me  ?"  said  Mariposa,  with 
a  questioning  inflection. 

"That's  it.  I  want  you  to  go  to  Paris,  as  he  wanted 
you  to  go.  I  want  you  to  study  to  be  a  singer.  I'll 
pay  it  all — education,  masters,  and  a  monthly  sum  for 
living  besides.  I  don't  think,  from  what  I  hear,  that  it 
would  be  necessary  for  you  to  study  more  than  two  or 
three  years.  Then  you  would  make  your  appearance 
as  a  grand  opera  prima  donna,  or  concert  singer,  as 
your  teachers  thought  fit.  I  don't  know  much  about 
it,  but  I  believe  they  can't  always  tell  about  a  voice 
right  off  at  the  start.  Anyway,  I'd  see  to  it  that  yours 
got  every  chance  for  the  best  development." 

She  paused. 

"I — I'm — afraid  it  will  be  impossible,"  said  Mari 
posa,  in  a  low  voice. 


254  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Impossible!"  exclaimed  the  elder  woman,  sitting- 
upright  in  her  surprise.  "Why?" 

Mariposa  had  come  to  the  house  of  Mrs.  Shackleton 
burning  with  a  sense  of  the  wrongs  her  mother  had 
suffered  at  the  hands  of  this  woman  and  her  dead 
husband.  She  had  thought  little  of  what  the  interview 
would  be  like,  and  now,  with  the  keen,  hard,  and  as 
tonished  eyes  of  Bessie  upon  her,  she  felt  that  some 
thing  more  than  pride  and  indignation  must  help  her 
through.  The  world's  diplomacy  of  tongue  and  brain 
was  an  unsuspected  art  to  her. 

"I — I — "she  stammered  irresolutely,  "have  changed 
my  mind  since  I  talked  with  Mr.  Shackleton." 

"Changed  your  mind !  But  why  ?  What's  made  you 
change  your  mind  in  so  short  a  time  ?" 

"Many  things,"  said  the  girl,  with  her  face  flushing 
deeply  under  Bessie's  unflinching  stare.  "There  have 
been  changes — in — in — circumstances — and  in  me.  My 
mother  was  anxious  for  my  advancement.  Now  she 
is  dead  and — it  doesn't  matter." 

It  was  certainly  not  a  brilliant  way  out  of  the  diffi 
culty.  A  faint  smile  wrinkled  the  loose  skin  round 
Mrs.  Shackleton's  eyes. 

"Oh,  my  dear,"  she  said,  with  a  slight  touch  of  im 
patience  in  her  voice.  "If  that's  all,  I  guess  we  needn't 
worry  about  it.  People  die,  and  we  lose  our  energies 
and  ambition,  so  we  just  want  to  lie  round  and  mourn. 
But  at  your  age  that  don't  last  long.  You've  got  to 
make  your  future  yourself,  and  now's  your  chance. 
It  just  comes  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime,  and  the  peo 
ple  who  get  there  are  the  people  who  know  enough  to 
snatch  it  as  it  comes  by." 


THE    SEED    OF   BANQUO  255 

Mariposa's  irresolution  had  passed.  She  realized 
that  she  had  not  merely  to  state  her  intentions,  but  to 
fight  a  will  unused  to  defeat. 

"I  can't  go,"  she  said  quietly;  "I  understand  that 
all  you  say  is  perfectly  true.  You  probably  think  I 
am  silly  and  ungrateful.  I  don't  think  I  am  either, 
but  that's  because  I  know  what  I  feel.  I  thank  you 
very  much,  but  I  can't  accept  it." 

She  rose  to  her  feet.  Bessie  saw  that  she  was  pale 
— evidently  agitated. 

"Sit  down,"  she  said,  indicating  the  chair  again. 
"Now  let  me  hear  your  reasons,  my  dear  girl.  People 
don't  throw  up  the  chance  of  a  lifetime  for  nothing. 
What's  behind  all  this  ?" 

There  was  a  pause.    Mariposa  said  slowly: 

"I  don't  want  to  accept  it.  I  don't  want  to  take  the 
money  or  be  under  any  obligation." 

"You  were  willing  to  be  under  the  obligation,  as 
you  call  it,  a  few  weeks  ago  ?" 

Bessie's  voice  was  as  cold  as  steel.  From  the  mo 
ment  she  had  entered  the  room  she  had  felt  an  instinc 
tive  antagonism  between  herself  and  her  husband's  eld 
est  child.  It  would  become  a  hatred  in  time.  The 
girl's  slow  and  reluctant  way  of  speaking  seemed  to 
indicate  that  she  expressed  herself  with  difficulty,  like 
one  who,  under  pressure,  tells  the  truth. 

"My  mother  wanted  me  to  accept  anything  that  was 
for  my  own  benefit.  Now  she  is  dead.  I  am  my  own 
mistress.  I  grieve  or  hurt  no  one  but  myself  if  I  re 
fuse  your  offer.  And,  as  things  are  now,  it  is  better 
for  me  to  refuse  it." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  'as  things  are  now'?     Has 


256  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

anything  happened   to  change  your   ideas   since   my 
husband  first  made  the  suggestion  to  you  ?" 

Mariposa  told  her  lie  as  a  woman  does,  with  reser 
vations.  It  was  creditably  done,  for  it  was  the  first 
lie  she  had  ever  told  in  her  life. 

"Nothing  has  actually  happened,  but — I — I — have 
changed." 

"And  are  you  going  to  let  a  girl's  whims  stand  in 
the  way  of  your  future  success  in  life?  I  can't  believe 
that.  My  dear,  you're  handsome  and  you've  a  fine 
voice,  but  do  you  think  those  two  things,  without  a 
cent  behind  them,  are  going  to  put  you  on  top  of  the 
heap?  You're  not  the  woman  to  get  there  without  a 
lot  of  boosting." 

"Why  should  I  want  to  get  on  top  of  the  heap  ?" 

"Oh,  if  you  want  to  stay  at  the  bottom — " 

Mrs.  Shackleton  gave  a  shrug  and  rose  to  her  feet. 
The  girl  was  incomprehensible.  She  was  either  very 
subtile  and  deep,  or  she  was  extraordinarily  dull  and 
shallow.  Shackleton  had  said  to  her  once  that  she 
seemed  to  him  childish  and  undeveloped,  for  her  age. 
The  woman's  keen  eye  saw  deeper.  If  Mariposa  was 
not  disingenuous,  she  would  always,  on  the  side  of 
shrewdness  and  worldly  wisdom,  be  undeveloped. 

"Well,  my  dear,"  she  said  coldly,  "it  all  rests  with 
yourself.  But  I  can't,  conscientiously,  let  you  throw 
your  best  chances  away.  We  won't  speak  of  this  any 
more  to-day.  But  go  home  and  think  about  it,  and  in 
a  week  or  two  let  me  know  what  conclusion  you've 
come  to.  Don't  ever  throw  a  chance  away,  even  if 
you  don't  happen  to  like  the  person  who  offers  it." 

She  gave  Mariposa  a  shrewd  and  good-natured  smile. 


THE   SEED   OF   BANQUO  257 

The  girl,  her  face  crimsoning,  was  about  to  answer, 
when  the  hall  door  opened,  and,  with  a  sound  of  laugh 
ter  and  a  whiff  of  violets,  Maud  and  the  Count  de  La- 
molle  entered  the  room. 

In  her  heavy  mourning,  Maud  looked  more  nearly 
pretty  than  she  had  ever  done  before.  It  was  not  the 
dress  that  beautified  her,  but  the  happiness  of  her  en 
gagement  to  Latimer,  with  whom  she  was  deeply  in 
love,  which  had  lent  her  the  fleeting  grace  and  charm 
that  only  love,  well  bestowed,  can  give.  She  carried  a 
large  bunch  of  violets  in  her  hand,  and  her  face  was 
slightly  flushed. 

The  count,  who  had  attentively  read  the  will  of  Jake 
Shackleton  in  the  papers,  was  staying  on  in  San  Fran 
cisco.  His  attentions  to  Maud  were  not  more  assidu 
ous,  but  they  were  more  "serious,"  to  use  the  technical 
phrase,  than  heretofore.  She  would  make  him  an  ideal 
wife,  he  thought.  Even  her  lack  of  beauty  was  an 
advantage.  When  an  American  girl  was  both  rich 
and  pretty,  she  was  more  than  even  the  most  tactful 
and  sophisticated  Frenchman  could  manage.  Maud, 
ugly,  gentle,  and  not  clever,  would  be  a  delightful 
wife,  ready  to  love  humbly,  unexacting,  easy  to  make 
happy. 

The  count,  a  handsome,  polished  Parisian,  speak 
ing  excellent  English,  bowed  over  Mrs.  Shackleton's 
hand,  and  then,  in  answer  to  her  words  of  introduc 
tion,  shot  an  exploring  look,  warmed  by  a  glimmer 
of  discreet  admiration,  at  Mariposa.  He  wondered 
who  she  was,  for  his  practised  eye  took  in  at  a  glance 
that  she  was  shabbily  dressed  and  evidently  not  of  the 
world  of  bonanza  millions.  He  wished  that  he  knew 


258  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

her,  now  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  spend  some 
months  in  San  Francisco,  paying  court  to  the  heiress 
who  would  make  him  such  an  admirable  wife,  and  in 
whose  society  time  hung  so  heavily  on  his  hands. 

Mariposa  excused  herself  and  hurried  away.  She 
was  angry  and  confused.  It  seemed  to  her  she  had 
done  nothing  but  be  rude  and  obstinately  stupid,  while 
the  cold  and  composed  older  woman  had  eyed  her 
with  wary  attentiveness.  What  did  Mrs.  Shackleton 
think  she  had  meant?  She  felt  that  the  widow  had 
not,  for  a  moment,  abandoned  the  scheme  of  sending 
her  away.  Descending  the  wide  steps  in  the  early 
dark,  the  girl  realized  that  the  woman  she  had  just  left 
was  not  going  to  be  beaten  from  her  purpose  by  what 
appeared  a  girl's  unreasonable  caprice. 

A  man  coming  up  the  steps  brushed  by  her,  paused 
for  a  moment,  and  then  mechanically  raised  his  hat. 
In  the  gleam  of  the  lamps,  held  aloft  at  the  top  of  the 
flight,  she  recognized  the  thin  face  and  eye-glasses  of 
Win  Shackleton.  She  did  not  return  the  salute,  as  it 
was  completely  unexpected,  and  from  the  foot  of  the 
stairs  she  heard  the  hall  door  bang  behind  him. 

"Who  was  that  girl  I  met  on  the  steps  just  now, 
going  out?"  Win  asked  his  mother,  as  they  went  up 
stairs  together. 

"That  Miss  Moreau  your  father  was  interested  in. 
He  was  going  to  send  her  to  Paris  to  learn  singing." 

"What  was  she  doing  here  ?" 

"I  sent  for  her.  I  wanted  to  talk  over  things  with 
her.  I  intended  sending  her." 

"And  did  you  fix  it  ?" 

"No,"  with  a  little  laugh,  "she's  a  very  changeable 


THE   SEED   OF   BANQUO  259 

young  woman.  She  says  she  doesn't  want  to  go  now ; 
that  she's  come  to  the  conclusion  she  doesn't  want  to 
be  under  the  obligation." 

"That's  funny,"  said  Win.  "She  must  be  sort  of 
original.  Mommer,  why  did  the  governor  want  to 
send  her  to  Paris?  What  was  it  made  him  so  inter 
ested  in  her  ?" 

"He  knew  her  father  long  ago,  mining,  in  the  Sierra, 
and  Moreau  did  him  a  good  turn  up  there.  Your  father 
had  never  forgotten  it  and  was  anxious  to  repay  it  by 
helping  the  daughter.  She  don't  seem  to  be  easy  to 
help." 

Win,  as  he  dressed  for  dinner,  meditated  on  his 
mother's  explanation.  It  sounded  reasonable  enough, 
only  a  thirst  to  repay  past  obligations  was  not — ac 
cording  to  his  experience  and  memories — a  peculiarity 
that  had  troubled  his  father.  Both  he  and  Maud  knew 
that  all  the  generosities  and  charities  of  the  household 
had  been  inspired  by  their  mother.  His  childish  mem 
ory  was  stocked  by  recollections  of  her  urging  the 
advantage  of  the  bestowal  of  pecuniary  aid  to  this  and 
that  person,  association  and  charity.  It  was  she  who 
had  saved  Jake  Shackleton  from  the  accusation  of 
meanness,  which  California  society  invariably  makes 
against  its  rich  men. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

VAIN   PLEADINGS 

"Are  there  not,     *    *    * 

Two  points  in  the  adventure  of  the  diver: 

One — when  a  beggar  he  prepares  to  plunge; 

One — when  a  prince  he  rises  with  his  pearl?" 

— BROWNING. 

To  the  astonishment  of  his  world,  Win  Shackleton 
announced  his  intention  of  retaining-  The  Trumpet, 
and  conducting  it,  himself,  on  the  lines  laid  down  by 
his  father.  There  was  a  slight  shifting  of  positions,  in 
which  some  were  advanced  and  one  or  two  heads  were 
unexpectedly  lopped  off  and  thrown  in  the  basket.  The 
new  ruler  took  control  with  a  decision  that  startled 
those  who  had  regarded  him  as  a  typical  millionaire's 
son.  The  men  on  the  paper,  who  had  seen  the  time 
of  their  lives  coming  in  the  managership  of  a  feeble 
and  inexperienced  boy,  were  awakened  from  their 
dreams  by  feeling  a  hand  on  the  reins,  as  tight  as  that 
of  Jake  Shackleton  himself.  Win  had  ideas.  Mrs. 
Willers  was  advanced  to  the  managership  of  the  Wom 
an's  Page,  into  which  she  swept  triumphant,  with  Miss 
Peebles,  the  young  woman  of  the  "Foibles  and  Fan 
cies"  column,  in  her  wake.  Barry  Essex  was  lifted 

260 


VAIN    PLEADINGS  261 

to  a  staff  position,  at  a  high  salary,  and  had  to  himself 
one  of  the  little  cells  that  branch  off  the  main  passage. 

Here  he  worked  hard,  for  Win  permitted  no  drones 
in  his  hive.  The  luck  was  with  Essex,  as  it  had  been 
often  before  in  his  varied  career.  Things  had  fallen 
together  exactly  as  they  should  for  the  furthering  of 
his  designs.  It  would  take  a  long  wooing  to  win  over 
Mariposa.  Now,  he  could  save  money  against  the 
day  when  he  and  she  would  leave  together  for  the 
Europe  where  they  were  to  conquer  fame  and  fortune. 

He  had  had  other  talks  with  Harney  since  the  eve 
ning  of  his  revelation.  He  was  convinced  that  the  man 
was  telling  the  truth.  He  had  known  men  before  of 
Harney's  type  and  wondered  why  the  drunkard  had 
not  made  use  of  his  knowledge  for  his  own  advance 
ment.  He  had  evidently  kept  his  eye  on  both  Shackle- 
ton  and  Moreau,  and  it  was  strange,  that,  as  the  two 
men  rose  to  affluence,  he  had  not  used  the  ugly  secret 
he  held.  The  only  explanation  of  it  was  that  they  held 
an  even  greater  power  over  him.  He  had  undoubt 
edly  had  reason  to  fear  both  men.  Shackleton,  once 
arrived  at  the  pinnacle  of  his  success,  would  have 
crushed  like  a  beetle  in  his  path  this  drunken  threat- 
ener  of  his  peace.  Moreau,  whose  every  movement  he 
seemed  to  have  followed,  had  evidently  had  a  hold  over 
him.  Hold  or  no  hold,  Shackleton  would  have  swept 
him  aside  by  the  power  of  his  money  and  his  position, 
into  the  oblivion  that  awaits  the  enemies  of  rich  and 
unscrupulous  men. 

Now  both  were  dead.  But  the  day  of  Harney's 
power  was  over.  Enfeebled  in  mind  and  body  by 
drink  and  disease,  he  had  neither  the  force  nor  the 


262  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

brain  to  be  dangerous.  His  uses  were  merely  those 
of  an  instrument  in  daring  hands.  And  those  hands 
had  found  him.  There  were  long  talks  in  Essex's 
room  in  the  evenings,  during  which  the  story  was 
threshed  out.  George  Harney,  drunk  or  sober,  neither 
contradicted  himself  nor  varied  in  his  details.  His 
mind,  confused  and  addled  on  other  matters,  retained 
this  memory  with  unblurred  clearness. 

So  Essex  deliberated,  carefully  and  without  haste, 
for  there  was  plenty  of  time. 

The  bright  days  continued.  On  a  radiant  Saturday 
afternoon,  Mariposa,  tired  with  a  morning's  teaching, 
started  forth  to  spend  an  hour  or  two  in  the  park.  She 
had  done  this  several  times  before,  finding  the  green 
peace  and  solitude  of  that  beautiful  spot  soothing  to 
her  harassed  spirit.  It  was  a  long  ride  in  those  days, 
and  this  had  its  charm,  the  little  steam  dummy  crest 
ing  the  tops  of  sandy  hills,  clothed  with  lupins  and 
tiny  frightened  oaks,  crouching  before  the  sea  winds. 
On  this  occasion  she  had  invited  the  escort  of  Benito, 
who  had  been  hanging  drearily  about  the  house,  think 
ing  with  mingled  triumph  and  envy  of  Miguel,  who 
had  gone  with  his  mother  to  have  a  tooth  pulled  out. 

"Pulling  the  tooth's  bad,  of  course,"  Benito  had 
said  to  Mariposa,  as  he  trotted  by  her  side  to  the  car, 
"but  then  afterward  there's  candy.  I  dunno  but  what 
it's  worth  while.  And  then  you  have  the  tooth." 

"Have  the  tooth!"  said  Mariposa.  "What  do  you 
want  the  tooth  for  ?" 

"You  can  show  it  to  the  boys  in  school,  and  you  can 
generally  trade  it.  I  traded  mine  for  a  knife  with  two 
blades,  but  both  of  'em  was  broke." 


VAIN   PLEADINGS  263 

Benito  was  becoming  very  friendly  with  Mariposa. 
He  was  a  cheerful  and  expansive  soul.  Could  they  have 
heard  him,  Uncle  Gam  and  his  mother  might  have 
suffered  some  embarrassment  on  the  score  of  his  reve 
lations  as  to  their  quarrels  concerning  his  upbring 
ing.  Benito  had  thoroughly  gaged  the  capacity  of 
each  of  them  in  resisting  his  charms  and  urging 
him  to  higher  and  better  things.  He  was  already  at 
the  stage  when  his  mother  appealed  slightly  to  his 
commiseration  and  largely  to  his  sense  of  humor.  Mar 
iposa  saw  that  while  he  had  grasped  the  great  fact  that 
his  Uncle  Gam  had  an  unfortunately  soft  heart,  he 
also  knew  there  was  a  stage  when  it  was  resolutely 
hardened  and  his  most  practised  wiles  fell  baffled  from 
its  surface. 

They  alighted  from  the  car  at  what  was  then  the 
main  entrance,  and,  side  by  side,  Benito  fluently  talk 
ing,  made  toward  the  gate.  Here  a  peanut  vender 
had  artfully  placed  his  stall,  and  the  fumes  from  the 
roasted  nuts  rose  gratefully  to  the  nostrils  of  the  small 
boy.  He  said  nothing,  but  sniffed  with  an  ostentatious 
noise,  and  then  looked  sidewise  at  Mariposa.  One  of 
the  sources  of  his  respect  for  her  was  that  she  was  so 
quick  in  reading  the  language  of  the  eye.  One  did 
not  vulgarly  have  to  demand  things  of  her.  He  felt 
the  nickel  in  his  hand  and  galloped  off  to  the  stand,  to 
return  slowly,  his  head  on  one  side,  an  eye  investigat 
ing  the  contents  of  the  opened  paper  bag  he  carried. 

Being  a  gentleman  of  gallant  forbears,  he  offered 
this  to  Mariposa,  listening  with  some  uneasiness  to 
the  scraping  of  her  fingers  among  its  contents.  He 
had  an  awful  thought  that  she  might  be  like  Miguel, 


264  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

who  could  never  be  trusted  to  withdraw  his  hand  un 
til  it  was  full  to  bursting.  But  Mariposa's  eventually 
emerged  with  one  small  nut  between  thumb  and  finger. 
This  she  nibbled  gingerly  as  they  passed  under  the 
odorous,  dark  shade  of  the  cypresses.  Benito  spread 
a  trail  of  shells  behind  him,  dragging  his  feet  in  silent 
happiness,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  brilliant  prospect  of 
sunlit  green  that  filled  in  the  end  of  the  vista  like  a 
drop-curtain. 

As  they  emerged  from  the  cypress  shadows  the 
lawns  and  shrubberies  of  the  park  lay  before  them  ra 
diantly  vivid  in  their  variegated  greens.  The  scene 
suggested  a  picture  in  its  motionless  beauty,  the  sun 
light  sleeping  on  stretches  of  shaven  turf  where  the 
peacocks  strutted,  the  red  dust  of  the  drive  unstirred 
by  wind  or  wheel.  Rich  earth  scents  mingled  with  the 
perfume  of  the  winter  blossoms,  delicate  breaths  of 
violets  from  beneath  the  trees,  spices  exhaled  by  be 
lated  roses  still  bravely  blossoming  in  November,  and 
now  and  then  a  whiff  of  the  acrid,  animal  odor  of  the 
eucalyptus. 

Following  pathways,  now  damp  beneath  the  shade 
of  melancholy  spruce  and  pine,  now  hard  and  dry  be 
tween  velvety  lawns,  they  came  out  on  a  large  circular 
opening.  Here  Mariposa  sat  down  on  a  bench,  with  her 
back  to  a  sheltering  mass  of  fir  and  hemlock,  the 
splendid  sunshine  pouring  on  her.  Benito,  with  his 
bag  in  his  hand,  trotted  off  to  the  grassy  slope  oppo 
site  where  custom  has  ordained  that  little  boys  may 
roll  about  and  play.  He  had  hardly  settled  himself 
there  to  the  further  enjoyment  of  his  nuts  when  an 
other  little  boy  appeared  and  made  friendly  overtures, 


VAIN    PLEADINGS  265 

with  his  eyes  on  the  bag.  Mariposa  could  not  hear 
them,  but  she  could  see  the  first  advance  and  Benito's 
somewhat  wary  eyings  of  the  stranger.  In  a  few  mo 
ments  the  formalities  of  introduction  were  over,  and 
they  were  both  lying  on  their  stomachs  on  the  grass, 
kicking  gently  with  their  toes,  while  the  bag  stood 
between  them. 

Mariposa  had  intended  to  read,  but  her  book  lay 
unopened  in  her  lap.  The  sun  in  California  is  some 
thing  more  than  warming  and  cheerful.  It  is  medic 
inal.  There  is  some  unnamed  balm  in  its  light  that 
soothes  the  tormented  spirit  and  rests  and  revivifies 
the  wearied  body.  It  is  at  once  a  stimulant  and  a 
sedative.  It  seems  to  have  sucked  up  healing  breaths 
from  the  resinous  forests  inland  and  to  be  exhaling 
them  again  upon  those  who  can  not  seek  their  aid. 

As  the  soothing  rays  enveloped  her,  Mariposa  felt 
the  strain  of  mind  and  body  relax  and  a  sense  of  rest 
suffuse  her.  She  stretched  herself  into  a  more  repose 
ful  attitude,  one  arm  thrown  along  the  back  of  the 
bench.  Her  book  lay  beside  her  on  the  seat.  To 
keep  the  blinding  light  from  her  eyes  she  tilted  her  hat 
forward  till  the  shade  of  its  brim  cut  cleanly  across  the 
middle  of  her  face. 

Her  mouth,  which  was  plainly  in  view,  had  the  ex 
pression  of  suffering  that  is  acquired  by  the  mouths 
of  those  who  have  been  forced  to  endure  suddenly  and 
silently.  Her  thoughts  reverted  to  Essex  and  the 
scene  in  the  cottage.  She  wondered  if  the  smart  and 
shame  of  it  would  ever  lessen — if  she  would  ever  see 
him  again,  and  what  he  would  say.  She  could  not 
imagine  him  as  anything  but  master  of  himself.  But 


266  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

he  was  no  longer  master  of  her.  The  subtile  spell  he 
had  once  exercised  was  forever  broken. 

She  heard  a  foot  on  the  gravel,  but  did  not  look  up ; 
several  people  had  passed  close  to  her  crossing  to  the 
main  drive.  The  new-comer  advanced  toward  her  idly, 
noting  the  grace  of  her  attitude,  the  rich  and  yet  ele 
gant  proportions  of  her  figure.  Her  face  was  turned 
from  him,  but  he  saw  the  roll  of  rust-colored  hair 
beneath  her  hat,  started,  and  quickened  his  pace.  He 
had  come  to  a  halt  beside  her  before  she  looked  up 
startled.  A  quick  red  rushed  into  her  face.  He,  for 
his  part,  stood  suave  and  smiling,  holding  his  hat  in 
one  hand,  no  expression  on  his  face  but  one  of  frank 
pleasure.  Even  in  his  eyes  there  was  not  a  shade  of 
consciousness. 

"What  a  piece  of  luck!"  he  said.  "Who'd  have 
thought  of  meeting  you  here?" 

Mariposa  had  nothing  to  respond.  In  a  desperate 
desire  for  flight  and  protection  she  looked  for  Benito, 
but  he  was  at  the  top  of  the  slope,  well  out  of  earshot 
of  anything  but  a  scream. 

Essex  surveyed  her  face  with  fond  attention. 

"You're  looking  better  than  you  did  before  you 
moved,"  he  said;  "you  were  just  a  little  too  pale  then. 
You  know,  I  didn't  know  it  was  you  at  all.  I  was 
looking  at  you  as  I  came  across  the  drive,  and  I  hadn't 
the  least  idea  it  was  you  till  I  saw  your  hair" — his 
eye  lighted  on  it  caressingly — "I  knew  there  was  only 
one  woman  in  San  Francisco  with  hair  like  that." 

His  voice  seemed  to  mesmerize  her  at  first.  Now  her 
volition  came  back  and  she  rose. 

"Benito !"  she  cried ;  "come  at  once,," 


VAIN   PLEADINGS  267 

The  two  little  boys  had  their  heads  close  together 
and  neither  turned. 

" W-hat  are  you  going  to  go  for  ?"  said  Essex  in  sur 
prise. 

"What  a  question !"  she  said,  picking  up  her  book 
with  a  trembling  hand,  and  thinking  in  her  ignorance 
that  he  spoke  honestly ;  "what  an  insulting  question !" 

"Insulting!  What  on  earth  do  you  mean  by  that?" 
coaxingly.  "Please  tell  me  why  you  are  going  ?" 

"Because  I  don't  want  ever  to  see  you  or  speak  to 
you  again,"  she  said  in  a  voice  shaken  with  anger.  "I 
couldn't  have  believed  any  man  could  be  so  lacking 
in  decency  as — as — to  do  this." 

"Do  what  ?"  he  asked  with  an  air  of  blank  surprise. 
"What  am  I  doing?" 

"Thrusting  yourself  on  me  this  way  when — when — 
you  know  that  the  sight  of  you  is  humiliating  and  hate 
ful  to  me." 

"Oh,  Mariposa!"  he  said  softly.  He  looked  into 
her  face  with  eyes  brimming  with  teasing  tenderness. 
"How  can  you  say  that  to  me  when  my  greatest  fault 
has  been  to  love  you?" 

"Love  me!"  she  ejaculated  with  breathless  scorn; 
"love  me !  Oh,  Benito," — calling  with  all  her  force — 
"come;  do  come.  I  want  you!" 

Benito,  who  undoubtedly  must  have  heard,  was  too 
pleasantly  engaged  with  the  companionship  of  his 
new  friend  to  make  any  response.  Early  in  life  he  had 
learned  the  value  of  an  occasional  attack  of  deafness. 

Mariposa  made  a  motion  to  go  to  him,  but  Essex 
gently  moved  in  front  of  her.  She  drew  away  from 
him,  knitting  her  brows  in  helpless,  heated  rage. 


268  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"You  know  you're  treating  me  very  badly,"  he  said. 

"Treating  you  very  badly,"  she  now  fairly  gasped, 
once  more  a  bewildered  fly  in  the  net  of  this  subtile 
spider,  "how  else  should  I  treat  you?" 

"Kindly,"  he  said,  softly  bending  his  compelling 
glance  on  her,  "as  a  woman  treats  a  man  who  loves 
her." 

"Mr.  Essex,"  she  said,  turning  on  him  with  all  the 
dignity  she  had  at  her  command,  "we  don't  seem  to 
understand  each  other.  The  last  time  I  saw  you,  you 
insulted  and  humiliated  me.  I  don't  know  how  it  can 
be,  but  you  seem  to  have  forgotten  all  about  it.  I 
haven't.  I  never  can,  and  I  don't  want  to  see  you  or 
speak  to  you  or  think  of  you  ever  again  in  this  world." 

"What  makes  you  think  I've  forgotten?"  he  said, 
suddenly  dropping  his  voice  to  a  key  that  thrilled  with 
meaning. 

He  saw  the  remark  shake  her  into  startled  half- 
comprehension.  That  she  still  took  his  words  at  their 
face  value  proved  to  him  again  how  strangely  simple 
she  was. 

"What  makes  you  think  I've  forgotten?"  he  re 
peated. 

She  raised  her  eyes  in  arrested  astonishment  and 
met  his,  now  seeming  suddenly  to  have  become  charged 
with  memories  of  the  scene  in  the  cottage. 

"How  could  I  forget?"  he  murmured.  "Do  you 
really  think  I  could  ever  forget  that  evening?" 

She  turned  away  speechless  with  embarrassment 
and  anger,  recollections  of  the  kisses  of  that  ill-omened 
interview  burning  in  her  face. 


VAIN    PLEADINGS  269 

"When  a  man  wounds  the  one  woman  in  the  world 
he  cares  for,  can  he  ever  forget,  do  you  think?" 

He  again  had  the  gratification  of  seeing  her  flash  a 
look  of  artless  surprise  at  him. 

"Then — then — "  she  stammered,  completely  bewil 
dered,  "if  you  know  that  you  wounded  me  so,  why  do 
you  come  back?  Why  do  you  speak  to  me  now? 
There  is  nothing  more  to  be  said  between  us." 

"Yes,  there  is ;  much  more." 

She  drew  back,  frowning,  on  the  alert  to  go.  For  a 
second  he  thought  he  was  to  lose  this  precious  and 
unlooked-for  chance  of  righting  himself  with  her. 

"Sit  down,"  he  said  entreatingly ;  "sit  down ;  I  must 
speak  to  you." 

She  turned  from  him  and  sent  a  quick  glance  toward 
Benito.  She  was  going. 

"Mariposa,"  he  said,  desperately  catching  at  her 
arm,  "please — a  moment.  Give  me  one  moment.  You 
must  listen  to  me." 

She  tried  to  draw  her  arm  away,  but  he  held  it,  and 
pleaded,  genuine  feeling  flushing  his  face  and  rough 
ening  his  voice. 

"I  beg — I  implore — of  you  to  listen  to  me.  I  only 
ask  a  moment.  Don't  condemn  me  without  hearing 
what  I  have  to  say.  I  behaved  like  a  blackguard.  I 
know  it.  It's  haunted  me  ever  since.  Sit  down  and 
listen  to  me  while  I  try  to  explain  and  make  you  for 
give  me." 

He  was  really  stirred;  the  sincerity  of  his  appeal 
touched  the  heart,  once  so  warm,  now  grown  so  cold 
toward  him.  She  sat  down  on  the  bench,  at  the  end 


270  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

farthest  from  him,  her  whole  bearing  suggesting  self- 
contained  aloofness. 

"I  know  I  shocked  and  hurt  you.  I  know  it's  just 
and  natural  for  you  to  treat  me  this  way.  I  was  mad. 
I  didn't  know  what  I  was  saying.  If  you  knew  how  I 
have  suffered  since  you  would  at  least  have  some  pity 
for  me.  Can  you  guess  what  it  means  to  give  a  blow 
to  the  being  who  is  more  to  you  than  all  the  rest  of  the 
world?  I  was  mad  for  that  one  evening." 

He  paused,  looking  at  her.  Her  profile  was  toward 
him,  pale  and  immovable.  She  neither  turned  nor 
spoke.  He  continued  with  a  slight  diminution  of  con 
fidence  : 

"I've  been  a  wild  sort  of  fellow,  consorting  with  all 
sorts  of  riffraff  and  thinking  lightly  of  women.  I've 
met  lots  of  all  kinds.  It  was  all  right  to  talk  to  them 
that  way.  You  were  different.  I  knew  it  from  the 
first.  But  that  night  in  the  cottage  I  lost  my  head. 
You  looked  so  pale  and  sad ;  my  love  broke  the  bonds 
I  had  put  upon  it.  Can't  you  understand  and  forgive 
me?" 

He  leaned  toward  her,  his  face  tense  and  pale.  As 
he  became  agitated  and  fell  into  the  position  of  pleader, 
she  grew  calm  and  regained  her  hold  on  herself.  There 
was  a  chill  poise  about  her  that  frightened  him.  He 
felt  that  if  he  attempted  to  touch  her  she  would  draw 
away  with  quick,  instinctive  repugnance. 

She  turned  and  looked  into  his  face  with  cold  eyes. 

"No,  I  don't  think  I  understand.  I  should  think 
those  very  things  you  mention  would  appeal  to  the 
chivalry  of  a  man  even  if  he  didn't  care  for  a  woman." 

"Do  you  doubt  that  I  love  you  ?" 


VAIN   PLEADINGS  271 

"Yes,"  she  said,  turning  away;  "I  don't  think  that 
you  ever  could  love  me  or  any  other  woman." 

"Why  do  you  say  that  ?" 

She  looked  out  over  the  grassy  slope  in  front  of 
them. 

"Because  you  don't  understand  the  first  principles 
of  it.  When  you're  fond  of  people  you  don't  want 
to  hurt  and  humiliate  them.  You  don't  want  to  drag 
them  down  to  shame  and  misery.  You'd  die  to  save 
them  from  those  things.  You  want  to  protect  them, 
help  them,  take  care  of  them,  be  proud  of  them  and 
say  to  all  the  world:  'Here,  look;  this  is  the  person 
I  love !' " 

Her  simplicity,  that  once  would  have  amused  him, 
now  had  something  in  it  that  at  once  touched  and 
alarmed  him.  There  was  a  downright  conviction  in 
it,  that  argument,  eloquence,  passion  even,  would  not 
be  able  to  shake. 

"And  that,  Mariposa,"  he  said,  ardently,  "is  the  way 
I  love  you." 

"That  the  way !"  she  echoed  scornfully.  "No — your 
way  is  to  ask  me  to  destroy  myself,  body  and  soul. 
You  ask  me  to  give  you  everything,  while  you  give 
nothing.  You  say  you  love  me,  and  yet  you're  so 
ashamed  of  me  and  your  love,  that  it  would  have  to  be 
a  hateful  secret  thing,  that  you  told  lies  about,  and 
would  expect  me  to  tell  lies  about,  too.  I  can't  under 
stand  how  you  can  dare  to  call  it  love.  I  can't  under 
stand.  Oh,  don't  talk  about  it  any  more.  It's  all  too 
horrible  and  cruel  and  false!" 

Her  words  still  further  alarmed  the  man.   He  knew 


272  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

they  were  not  those  of  a  woman  swayed  by  sentiment, 
far  less  by  passion. 

"That's  all  true,"  he  said  hastily,  "that's  all  true  of 
what  I  said  to  you  that  night  in  the  cottage.  Now  it's 
different.  Aren't  you  large-hearted  enough  to  forgive 
a  man  whose  greatest  weakness  has  been  his  infatua 
tion  for  you  ?  I  was  a  ruffian  and  you  an  unsuspecting 
angel.  Now  I  want  to  offer  you  the  only  kind  of  love 
that  ever  should  be  offered  you.  Will  you.  be  my 
wife?" 

Mariposa  started  perceptibly.  She  turned  and  looked 
with  amazed  eyes  into  his  face.  He  seemed  another 
man  from  the  one  who  had  so  bitterly  humiliated  her 
at  their  last  interview.  He  was  pale  and  in  earnest. 

"Will  you  ?"  he  repeated. 

"No,"  she  said  with  slow  decisiveness,  "I  will  not." 
,  "No?"  he  exclaimed,  in  loud-voiced  incredulity  and 
bending  his  head  to  look  into  her  face.  "No  ?" 

"No,"  she  reiterated ;  "I  said  no." 

She  felt  with  every  moment  that  their  positions  were 
changing  more  and  more.  She  was  gradually  ascend 
ing  to  the  command,  while  he  was  slowly  coming  un 
der  her  will. 

"Why  do  you  say  no  ?"  he  demanded. 

"Because  I  want  to  say  no." 

"But — but — why?     Are  you  still  angry?" 

"I  .want  to  say  no,"  she  repeated.  "I  couldn't  say 
anything  else." 

"But  you  love  me?"  with  angry  persistence. 

"No,  I  don't  love  you." 

"You  do,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice.  "You're  not  tell 
ing  the  truth.  You  do  love  me.  You  know  you  do." 


VAIN    PLEADINGS  273 

She  looked  at  him  with  cold  defiance,  and  said  stead- 
ily: 

"I  do  not." 

He  drew  nearer  her  along  the  bench  and  said  with 
his  eyes  hard  upon  her : 

"I  didn't  think  you  were  the  kind  of  woman  to  kiss  a 
man  you  didn't  care  for." 

He  knew  when  he  spoke  the  words  they  were  foolish 
and  jeopardized  his  cause,  but  his  fury  at  her  disdain 
ful  attitude  forced  them  from  him. 

She  turned  pale  and  her  nostrils  quivered.  He  had 
given  her  a  body  blow.  For  a  moment  they  sat  side 
by  side  looking  at  each  other  like  two  enraged  animals 
animated  by  equally  violent  if  different  passions. 

"Thank  you  for  saying  that,"  she  said,  when  she 
could  command  her  voice;  "now  I  understand  what 
your  love  for  me  means." 

She  rose  from  the  bench.  He  seized  her  hand  and 
attempted  to  draw  her  back,  saying : 

"Mariposa,  listen  to  me.  You  drive  me  distracted. 
You  force  me  to  say  things  like  that  to  you,  when  you 
know  that  I'm  mad  with  love  for  you.  Listen — " 

She  tore  her  hand  out  of  his  grasp  and  ran  across  the 
space  to  the  slope,  calling  wildly  to  Benito.  The  boy 
at  last  could  feign  deafness  no  longer  and  sat  up  on  his 
heels  in  well-simulated  surprise. 

"Come,  come,"  she  cried  angrily.  "Come  at  once. 
I  want  you." 

He  rose,  dusting  his  nether  parts  and  shouting : 

"Why?  why?  we're  havin'  an  awful  nice  time  up 
here." 

"Come,"  she  reiterated;  "it's  late  and  we  must  go." 


274  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

He  trotted  down  the  slope,  extremely  reluctant,  and 
inclined  to  be  rebellious. 

Mariposa  caught  him  by  the  hand  and  swept  him 
back  toward  the  path  between  the  spruces.  Essex  was 
still  standing  near  the  bench,  an  elegant  figure  with 
a  darkly  sinister  face.  As  they  passed  him  he  raised 
his  hat.  Mariposa,  whose  face  was  bent  down,  did 
not  return  the  salute;  so  Benito  did,  as  he  was  hauled 
by.  She  continued  to  drag  the  unwilling  little  boy 
along,  while  he  hung  loosely  from  her  hand,  staring 
backward  for  a  last  look  at  his  playmate. 

"What's  your  name?"  he  roared  as  he  was  dragged 
toward  the  shadowy  path  that  plunged  into  the  trees. 
"I  forget  what  your  name  is." 

The  answer  was  lost  in  the  intervening  space,  and 
the  next  moment  he  and  Mariposa  disappeared  behind 
the  screen  of  thick-growing  evergreens. 

"Say,"  said  Benito,  "leggo  my  hand.  What's  the 
sense  'er  hauling  me  this  way  ?" 

Mariposa  did  not  heed,  and  they  went  on  at  a  feverish 
pace. 

"What  makes  your  hand  shake  that  way?"  was  his 
next  observation.  "It's  like  grandma's  when  she  came 
home  from  Los  Angeles  with  the  chills." 

There  was  something  in  this  harmless  comment 
that  caused  Mariposa  suddenly  to  loosen  her  hold. 

"My  hand  often  does  that  way,"  she  said  with  an  air 
of  embarrassment. 

"What  makes  it  ?"  asked  Benito,  suddenly  interested. 

"I  don't  know ;  perhaps  playing  the  piano,"  she  said, 
feeling  the  necessity  of  having  to  dissemble. 

"I'd  like  to  be  able  to  make  my  hand  shake  that 


VAIN    PLEADINGS  275 

way,"  Benito  observed  enviously.  "When  grandma 
had  the  chills  I  used  to  watch  her.  But  she  shook  all 
over.  Sometimes  her  teeth  used  to  click.  Do  your 
teeth  ever  click  ?" 

The  subject  interested  him  and  furnished  food  for 
conversation  till  they  reached  their  car  and  were  swept 
homeward  over  the  low  hills,  breaking  here  and  there 
into  sand,  and  with  the  little  oaks  crouching  in  gro 
tesque  fear  before  the  winds. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THROUGH   A   GLASS  DARKLY 

"Thou  hast  made  us  to  drink  the  wine  of  astonishment. 
Thou  hast  showed  thy  people  hard  things." — PSALMS. 

The  third  boarder  at  the  Garcias'  was  Isaac  Pier- 
pont,  the  teacher  of  singing.  The  Garcia  house  of 
fered,  at  least,  the  one  recommendation  of  being  a  place 
wherein  musically  inclined  lodgers  might  make  the 
welkin  ring  with  the  sounds  of  their  industry  and  no 
voice  be  raised  in  protest.  Between  the  pounding  of 
her  own  pupils  Mariposa  could  hear  the  voices  of  Pier- 
pont's  as  they  performed  vocal  prodigies  under  their 
teacher's  goadings. 

The  young  man  was  unusual  and  interesting.  He 
had  a  "method"  which  he  expounded  to  Mariposa  dur 
ing  the  process  of  meals.  It  was  founded  on  a  large 
experience  of  voices  in  general  and  a  close  anatomical 
study  of  the  vocal  chords.  All  he  wanted,  he  said,  to 
demonstrate  its  excellence  to  the  world  was  a  voice. 
Mrs.  Garcia,  who  used  to  drop  in  on  Mariposa  with 
her  head  tied  up  in  white  swathings  and  a  broom  in 
her  hand,  had  early  in  their  acquaintance  given  her  a 
life  history  of  the  two  other  boarders,  with  a  running 
accompaniment  of  her  own  comments.  Pierpont  had 
not  her  highest  approval,  as  he  was  exasperatingly 

276 


THROUGH   A   GLASS   DARKLY        277 

indifferent  to  money,  being  bound,  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  lesser  interests,  on  the  search  for  his  voice.  Half 
his  pupils  were  taught  for  nothing  and  the  other  half 
forgot  to  pay,  or  Pierpont  forgot  to  send  in  his  bills, 
which  was  the  same  thing  in  the  end,  Mrs.  Garcia 
thought. 

"I  can't  see  what's  the  good  of  working,"  she  said, 
daintily  brushing  the  surface  of  the  carpet  with  her 
broom,  "if  you  don't  make  anything  by  your  work. 
What's  the  sense  of  it,  I'd  like  to  know?" 

As  soon  as  the  singing  teacher  heard  that  Mariposa 
had  a  voice  he  had  espied  in  her  the  object  of  his  search 
and  begged  her  to  sing  for  him.  But  she  had  refused. 
She  had  not  sung  a  note  since  her  mother's  death.  The 
series  of  unforeseen  and  disastrous  developments  that 
had  followed  the  opening  scene  of  the  drama  in  which 
she  found  herself  the  central  figure  had  robbed  her  of 
all  desire  to  use  the  gift  which  was  her  one  source  of 
fortune.  Sometimes,  alone  in  her  room,  her  fingers 
running  over  the  keys  of  the  piano,  she  wondered 
dreamily  what  it  would  be  like  once  again  to  hear  the 
full,  vibrating  sounds  booming  out  from  her  chest. 
Now  and  then  she  had  tried  a  note  or  two  or  an  old 
familiar  strain,  then  had  stopped,  repelled  and  dis 
enchanted.  Her  voice  sounded  coarse  and  strange. 
And  while  it  quivered  on  the  air  there  came  a  rush  of 
exquisitely  painful  memories. 

But  one  afternoon,  a  few  days  after  her  encounter 
with  Essex,  she  had  come  in  early  to  find  the  lower  hall 
full  of  the  sound  of  a  high,  crystal  clear  soprano,  which 
was  pouring  from  the  teacher's  room.  She  listened  in 
terested,  held  in  a  spell  of  envious  attention.  It  was 


278  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

evidently  a  girl  of  whom  Pierpont  had  spoken  to  her, 
who  possessed  the  one  voice  of  promise  he  had  yet 
found,  and  who  was  studying  for  the  stage.  Leaning 
over  the  stair-rail,  Mariposa  felt,  with  a  tingling  at  her 
heart,  that  this  singing  had  a  finish  and  poise  hers 
entirely  lacked,  and  yet  the  voice  was  thin,  colorless 
and  fragile  compared  with  her  own.  With  all  its 
flawless  ease  and  fluency  it  had  not  the  same  splendor 
of  tone,  the  same  passionate  thrill. 

She  went  slowly  upstairs,  pursued  by  the  beautiful 
sounds,  bending  over  the  railing  to  catch  them  more 
fully,  with,  for  the  first  time  since  her  mother's  death, 
the  desire  to  emulate,  to  be  up  and  doing,  to  hear  once 
more  the  rich  notes  swelling  from  her  throat. 

"Some  day  /'//  sing  for  him,"  she  said  to  herself, 
with  her  head  up  and  her  eyes  bright,  "and  he'll  see 
that  none  of  them  has  a  voice  like  mine." 

The  stir  of  enthusiasm  was  still  on  her  when  she 
shut  the  door  of  her  own  room.  It  was  hard  to  settle 
to  anything  with  this  sudden  welling  up  of  old  am 
bitions  disturbing  the  apathy  following  on  grief.  She 
was  standing,  looking  down  on  the  garden — a  pros 
pect  which  had  long  lost  its  forlornness  to  her  accus 
tomed  eyes — when  a  knock  at  the  door  fell  gratefully 
on  her  ears.  Even  the  society  of  Mrs.  Garcia,  with 
her  head  tied  up  in  the  white  duster,  had  its  advantages 
now  and  then. 

But  it  was  not  Mrs.  Garcia,  but  Mrs.  Willers  whom 
the  opening  door  revealed.  Mariposa's  welcome  was 
warmed  not  only  by  the  desire  for  companionship  but 
by  genuine  affection.  She  had  come  to  regard  Mrs. 
Willers  as  her  best  friend. 


THROUGH   A   GLASS   DARKLY        279 

They  did  not  see  each  other  as  often  as  formerly, 
for  the  newspaper  woman  found  all  her  time  occupied 
by  her  new  work.  To-day  being-  Monday,  she  had 
managed  to  get  off  for  the  afternoon,  as  it  was  in  the 
Sunday  edition  that  the  Woman's  Page  attained  its 
most  imposing  proportions.  Monday  was  a  day  off. 
But  Mrs.  Willers  did  not  always  avail  herself  of  it. 
She  was  having  the  first  real  chance  of  her  life  and  was 
working  harder  than  she  had  ever  done  before.  Her 
bank  account  was  mounting  weekly.  On  the  occasions 
when  she  had  time  to  consult  the  little  book  she  saw 
through  the  line  of  figures  Edna  going  to  a  fine  school 
in  New  York,  and  then,  perhaps,  a  still  finer  one 
abroad,  and  back  of  that  again — dimly,  as  became  a 
blissful  vision — Edna  grown  a  woman,  accomplished, 
graceful,  beautiful,  a  glorified  figure  in  a  haze  of  wealth 
and  success. 

She  had  no  war-paint  on  to-day,  but  was  in  her 
working  clothes,  dark  and  serviceable,  showing  lapses 
between  skirt  and  waist-band,  and  tag  ends  of  tape 
appearing  in  unexpected  places.  She  had  dressed  in 
such  a  hurry  that  morning  that  only  three  buttons  of 
each  boot  were  fastened,  though  the  evening  before 
Edna  had  seen  to  it  that  they  were  all  on.  She  had 
come  up  the  hill  on  what  she  would  have  called  "a  dead 
run,"  and  was  still  fetching  her  breath  with  gasps. 

Sitting  opposite  Mariposa,  in  the  bright  light  of  the 
window,  she  let  her  eyes  dwell  fondly  on  the  girl's 
face. 

"Well,  young  woman,  do  you  know  I've  come  up 
here  on  the  full  jump  to  lecture  you?" 

"Lecture  me  ?"  said  Mariposa,  laughing  and  bending 


280  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

forward  to  give  Mrs.  Willers'  hand  a  friendly  squeeze. 
"What  have  I  been  doing  now  ?" 

"That's  just  what  I've  come  to  find  out.  Left  a 
desk  full  of  work,  and  Miss  Peebles  hopping  round  like 
a  chicken  with  its  head  off,  to  find  out  what  you've 
been  doing.  I'd  have  come  up  before  only  I  couldn't 
get  away.  Mariposa,  my  dear,  I've  had  a  letter  from 
Mrs.  Shackleton." 

Mariposa's  color  deepened.  A  line  appeared  be 
tween  her  eyebrows,  and  she  looked  out  of  the  win 
dow. 

"Well,"  she  said;  "and  did  she  say  anything  about 
me?" 

"That's  what  she  did— a  lot.  A  lot  that  sorter 
stumped  me.  And  I've  come  up  here  to-day  to  find 
out  what's  the  matter  with  you.  What  is  it  that's  mak 
ing  you  act  like  several  different  kinds  of  fool  all  at 
once  ?" 

"What  do  you  mean  ?"  said  Mariposa  weakly,  trying 
to  gain  time.  "What  did  she  tell  you  ?" 

"My  dear,  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  what  she  told 
me.  And  I  can't  make  head  or  tail  of  it.  What's 
come  over  you  ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  the  girl  in  a  low  voice.  "I 
suppose  I've  changed." 

"Stuff!"  observed  Mrs.  Willers  briskly.  "Don't  try 
to  tell  lies ;  you  don't  know  how.  One's  got  to  have 
some  natural  capacity  for  it.  You've  had  an  offer 
that  makes  it  possible  for  you  to  go  to  Europe, 
educate  your  voice,  study  French  and  German,  and 
become  a  prima  donna.  Everything's  to  be  paid — no 


THROUGH   A    GLASS   DARKLY        281 

limit  set  on  time  or  money.  Now,  what  in  heaven's 
name  made  you  refuse  that  ?" 

Facing  her  in  the  bright  light,  the  questioner's  eyes 
were  like  gimlets  on  her  face.  Mrs.  Willers  saw  its 
distressed  uneasiness,  but  could  read  no  further.  Three 
days  before  she  had  received  Mrs.  Shackleton's  letter, 
and  had  been  amazed  by  its  contents.  She  could 
neither  assign  to  herself  nor  to  Mrs.  Shackleton  a  rea 
son  for  the  girl's  unexplainable  conduct. 

"I  can't  explain  it  to  you,"  said  Mariposa.  "I — I — 
didn't  want  to  go.  That  was  all." 

"But  you  wanted  to  go  only  a  month  or  two  before, 
when  Shackleton  himself  made  you  the  offer?" 

Mariposa  nodded  without  answering. 

"But  why  ?  That's  the  part  that's  so  extraordinary. 
You'd  take  it  from  him,  but  not  from  his  wife." 

"A  person  might  change  her  mind,  mightn't  she  ?" 

"A  fool  might,  but  a  reasonable  woman,  without  a 
cent,  with  hardly  a  friend,  how  could  she?" 

"Well,  she  has." 

"Mariposa,  look  me  in  the  eye." 

Mrs.  Willers  met  the  amber-clear  eyes  and  saw,  with 
an  uneasy  thrill,  that  there  was  knowledge  in  them 
there  had  not  been  before.  It  was  not  the  limpid 
glance  of  the  candid,  unspoiled  youth  it  had  once  been. 
She  felt  a  contraction  of  pain  at  her  heart,  as  though 
she  had  read  the  same  change  in  Edna's  eyes. 

"What  made  you  change  your  mind  ? — that's  what  I 
want  to  know." 

Mariposa  lowered  her  lids. 

"I  can't  tell.    What  makes  anybody  change  his  mind  ? 


282  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

You  think  differently.  Things  happen  that  make  you 
think  differently." 

"Well,  what's  happened  to  make  you  think  differ 
ently?" 

The  lines  appeared  again  on  the  smooth  forehead. 
She  shifted  her  glance  to  the  window  and  then  back 
to  the  hands  on  her  lap. 

"Suppose  I  don't  want  to  tell?  I'm  not  a  little  girl 
like  Edna,  to  have  to  tell  every  thought  I  have.  Mayn't 
I  have  a  secret,  Mrs.  Willers?" 

She  looked  at  her  interlocutor  with  an  attempt  at  a 
coaxing  smile.  Mrs.  Willers  saw  that  it  was  an  ef 
fort,  and  remained  grave. 

"I  don't  want  you  to  have  secrets  from  me,  dear,  no 
more  than  I  would  Edna.  Mariposa,"  she  said  in  a 
lowered  voice,  leaning  forward  and  putting  her  hand 
on  the  girl's  knee,  "is  it  because  of  some  man  ?" 

Mariposa  looked  up  quickly.  The  elder  woman  saw 
that,  for  a  moment,  she  was  startled. 

"Some  man!"  she  exclaimed.     "What  man?" 

"You  haven't  changed  your  mind  because  of  Es 
sex?" 

"Essex!"  She  slowly  crimsoned,  and  Mrs.  Willers 
kept  her  pitiless  eyes  on  the  rising  flood  of  color. 

"Oh,  my  dear  girl,"  she  said  almost  in  an  agony, 
"don't  say  you've  got  fond  of  him." 

"I  don't  like  Mr.  Essex.     I— I — can't  bear  him." 

Mrs.  Willers  knew  enough  of  human  nature  not  to 
be  at  all  convinced  by  this  remark. 

"He's  not  the  man  for  any  woman  to  give  her  heart 
to.  He's  not  the  man  to  take  seriously.  He's  never 
loved  anything  in  his  life  but  himself.  Don't  let  your- 


THROUGH   A   GLASS   DARKLY        283 

self  be  fooled  by  him.  He's  handsome,  and  he's  about 
the  smoothest  talker  I  ever  ran  up  against.  But  don't 
you  be  crazy  enough  to  fall  in  love  with  him." 

"I  tell  you,  I  don't  like  him." 

"My  goodness,  I  wish  there  was  somebody  in  this 
world  to  take  care  of  you.  You've  got  no  sense,  and 
you're  so  unfortunately  good-looking.  Some  day 
you'll  be  fooled  just  as  I  was  with  Willers.  Are  you 
telling  the  truth?  It  isn't  Essex  that's  made  you 
change  your  mind  ?" 

These  repeated  accusations  exasperated  Mariposa. 

"No,  it  is  not,"  she  said  angrily ;  and  then,  in  the 
heat  of  her  annoyance,  "if  anything  would  make  me 
accept  Mrs.  Shackleton's  offer  it  would  be  the  hope 
of  getting  away  from  that  man." 

There  was  no  doubt  she  was  speaking  the  truth  now. 
Mrs.  Willers'  point  of  view  of  the  situation  underwent 
a  kaleidoscopic  upsetting. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  in  a  subdued  voice,  "then  it's  he 
that's  in  love  ?" 

The  girl  made  no  answer.  She  felt  hot  and  sore, 
pricked  by  this  insistent  probing  of  spots  that  were 
still  raw. 

"Does  he — does  he — bother  you?"  the  elder  woman 
said  in  an  incredulous  voice.  Somehow  she  could  not 
reconcile  the  picture  of  Essex  as  a  repulsed  and  sup 
pliant  wooer  with  her  knowledge  of  him  as  such  a  very 
self-assured  and  debonair  person. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  by  'bother  me/  "  said 
Mariposa,  still  heated.  "He  makes  love  to  me,  and  I 
don't  like  it.  I  don't  like  him." 


284  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Makes  love  to  you  ?  What  do  you  mean  by  'makes 
love  to  you  ?'  " 

"He  has  asked  me  to  be  his  wife,"  said  the  victim, 
goaded  to  desperation  by  this  tormenting  catechism. 

She  could  not  have  confessed  that  Essex  had  enter 
tained  other  designs  with  regard  to  her,  any  more 
than  she  could  have  told  her  real  reason  for  refusing 
Mrs.  Shackleton's  offer.  But  she  felt  ashamed  and 
miserable  at  these  half-truths,  which  her  friend  was 
giving  ear  to  with  the  wide  eyes  of  wonder. 

"Humph !"  said  Mrs.  Willers,  "I  never  thought  that 
man  would  want  to  marry  a  poor  girl.  But  that's  not 
as  surprising  as  that  you  had  sense  enough  to  refuse 
him." 

"I  don't  like  him.  I  know  I'm  stupid,  but  I  know 
when  I  like  a  person  and  when  I  don't.  And  I'd  rather 
stand  on  the  corner  of  Kearney  and  Sutter  Streets  with 
a  tin  cup  begging  for  nickels  than  marry  Mr.  Essex, 
or  be  sent  to  Europe  by  Mrs.  Shackleton." 

"Well,  you're  a  combination  of  smartness  and  folly 
I  never  expect  to  see  beaten.  You've  got  sense  enough 
to  refuse  to  marry  a  man  who's  bound  to  make  you 
miserable.  That's  astonishing  in  any  girl.  And  then, 
on  the  other  hand,  you  throw  up  the  chance  of  a  life 
time  for  nothing.  That  would  be  astonishing  in  a 
candidate  for  entrance  into  an  asylum  for  the  feeble 
minded." 

"Perhaps  I  am  feeble-minded,"  said  Mariposa  hum 
bly.  "I  certainly  don't  think  I'm  very  clever,  espe 
cially  now  with  everybody  telling  me  what  a  fool  I 
am." 

"You're  only  a  fool  on  that  one  point,  honey.     And 


THROUGH    A   GLASS    DARKLY        285 

that's  what  makes  it  so  aggravating.  It's  just  a  kink 
in  your  brain,  for  you've  got  no  reason  to  act  the  way 
you  do." 

She  spoke  positively,  but  her  pleading  look  at  Mari- 
posa  showed  that  she  was  not  yet  willing  to  give  up  the 
search  for  a  reason.  Mariposa  leaned  forward  and 
took  her  hand. 

"Oh,  dear  Mrs.  Willers,"  she  said,  "don't  ask  me  any 
more.  Don't  tease  me.  I  do  love  you,  and  you've 
been  so  kind  to  me  I  can  never  stop  loving  you,  no  mat 
ter  what  you  did.  But  let  me  be.  Perhaps  I  have  a 
reason,  and  perhaps  I  am  only  a  fool,  but  whichever 
way  it  is,  be  sure  I  haven't  acted  hastily ;  and  I've  suf 
fered,  too,  trying  to  do  what  seemed  to  me  right." 

Her  eyes  suddenly  filled  with  tears,  and  she  got  up 
quickly  to  hide  them,  and  stood  looking  out  of  the 
window.  Mrs.  Willers  rose,  too,  and,  putting  an  arm 
around  her,  kissed  her  cheek. 

"All  right,"  she  said,  "I'll  try  not  to  bother.  But 
you  want  to  tell  me  whatever  you  think  you  can. 
You're  too  good-looking,  Mariposa,  and  you're  such 
—a—" 

She  stopped. 

"A  fool,"  came  from  Mariposa,  in  the  stifled  tones 
of  imminent  tears.  There  was  a  moment's  pause,  and 
then  their  simultaneous  laughter  filled  the  room. 

"You  see  you  can't  help  saying  it,"  said  Mariposa, 
laughing  foolishly,  with  the  tears  hanging  on  her 
lashes.  "It's  like  any  other  bad  habit — its  getting  en 
tire  control  of  you." 

A  few  moments  later  Mrs.  Willers  was  walking 
quickly  down  the  hill  toward  Sutter  Street,  her  brows 


286  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

knit  in  thought.  She  had  certainly  discovered  noth 
ing.  In  her  pocket  was  Mrs.  Shackleton's  letter  tell 
ing  of  Miss  Moreau's  refusal  of  her  offer  and  asking  if 
Mrs.  Willers  knew  the  reason  of  it.  Mrs.  Shackleton 
had  wondered  if  Miss  Moreau's  affections  had  been 
engaged,  which  could  perhaps  account  for  her  other 
wise  unaccountable  rejection  of  an  opportunity  upon 
which  her  whole  future  might  depend. 

Mrs.  Willers  had  been  relieved  to  find  there  was 
certainly  no  man  influencing  Miss  Moreau's  decision. 
For  unless  it  was  Essex,  it  could  be  no  one.  Mrs. 
Willers  knew  the  paucity  of  Mariposa's  social  circle. 
That  Essex  had  asked  the  girl  to  marry  him  and  been 
refused  was  astonishing.  The  rejection  was  only  a 
little  more  surprising  than  the  offer.  For  a  man  like 
Essex  to  want  to  marry  a  penniless  orphan  was  only 
exceeded  in  singularity  by  a  girl  like  Mariposa  refus 
ing  a  man  of  Essex's,  indisputable  attractions.  But 
there  was  always  something  to  be  thankful  for  in  the 
darkest  situation,  and  Mariposa  undoubtedly  had  no 
intention  of  marrying  him.  Providence  was  guiding 
her,  at  least,  in  that  respect. 

It  was  still  early  when  Mrs.  Willers  approached  The 
Trumpet  office.  The  sky  was  leaden  and  hung  with 
low  clouds.  As  she  drew  near  the  door  the  first  few 
drops  of  rain  fell,  spotting  the  sidewalk  here  and  there 
as  though  they  were  slowly  and  reluctantly  wrung  from 
the  swollen  heavens.  It  would  be  a  storm,  she  thought, 
as  she  turned  into  the  doorway  and  began  the  ascent 
of  the  dark  stairs  with  the  lanterns  on  the  landings. 
In  her  own  cubby-hole  she  answered  Mrs.  Shackleton's 


THROUGH   A   GLASS   DARKLY        287 

letter,  and  then  passed  along  the  passageway  to  the 
sanctum  of  the  proprietor,  who  was  still  in  his  office. 

Win,  in  his  father's  swivel  chair,  looked  very  small 
and  insignificant.  The  wide  window  behind  him  let 
a  flood  of  pale  light  over  his  bullet-shaped  head  with 
its  thatch  of  limp,  blond  hair,  and  his  thin  shoulders 
bowed  over  the  desk.  His  eyes  narrowed  behind  his 
glasses  as  he  looked  up  in  answer  to  Mrs.  Willers' 
knock,  and  then,  when  he  saw  who  it  was,  he  smiled, 
for  Win  liked  Mrs.  Willers. 

She  handed  him  the  letter  with  the  request  that  he 
give  it  to  his  mother  that  evening,  and  sat  down  in 
the  chair  beside  him,  facing  the  long  white  panes  of 
the  window,  which  the  rain  was  beginning  to  lash. 

"My  mother  and  you  seem  to  be  having  a  lively  cor 
respondence,"  said  Win,  who  had  brought  down  Mrs. 
Shackleton's  letter  some  days  before. 

"Yes,  we've  got  an  untractable  young  lady  on  our 
hands,  and  it's  a  large  order." 

"Miss  Moreau  ?"  said  the  proprietor  of  The  Trumpet. 
"My  mother  told  me.  She's  very  independent,  isn't 
she?" 

"She's  a  strange  girl.  You  can  tell  your  mother, 
as  I've  told  her  in  this  letter,  that  I  don't  understand 
her  at  all.  She's  got  some  idea  in  her  head,  but  I 
can't  make  it  out." 

"Mightn't  a  girl  just  be  independent?"  said  the 
young  man,  putting  up  a  long,  thin  hand  to  press  his 
glasses  against  his  nose  with  a  first  and  second  finger. 
"Just  independent,  and  nothing  else?" 

"There's  no  knowing  what  a  girl  mightn't  be,  Mr. 


288  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Shackleton,"  Mrs.  WiHers  responded  gloomily.  "I  was 
one  myself  once,  but  it's  so  long  ago  I've  forgotten  what 
it's  like;  and,  thank  heaven,  it's  a  stage  that's  soon 
passed." 

It  so  happened  that  this  little  conversation  set  Win's 
mind  once  more  to  thinking  of  the  girl  his  father  had 
been  so  determined  to  find  and  benefit.  As  he  left 
The  Trumpet  office,  shortly  after  the  withdrawal  of 
Mrs.  Willers,  his  mind  was  full  of  the  queries  the  find 
ing  of  the  letters  had  aroused  in  it.  The  handsome 
girl  he  had  seen  that  afternoon,  three  months  ago, 
appeared  before  his  mental  vision,  and  this  time  as 
her  face  flashed  out  on  him  from  the  dark  places  of 
memory  it  had  a  sudden  tantalizing  suggestion  of 
familiarity.  The  question  came  that  so  often  teases  us 
with  the  sudden  glimpse  of  a  vaguely  recognized  face : 
"Where  have  I  seen  it  before  ?" 

Win  walked  slowly  up  Third  Street  meditating 
under  a  spread  umbrella.  It  was  raining  hard  now,  a 
level  downpour  that  beat  pugnaciously  on  the  city, 
which  gleamed  and  ran  rillets  of  water  under  the 
onslaught.  People  were  scurrying  away  in  every 
direction,  women  with  umbrellas  low  against  their 
heads,  one  hand  gripping  up  their  skirts,  from  be 
neath  which  came  and  went  glimpses  of  muddy  boots 
and  wet  petticoats.  Loafers  were  standing  under 
eaves,  looking  out  with  yellow,  apathetic  faces.  The 
merchants  of  the  quarter  came  to  the  doorways  of  the 
smaller  shops  that  Win  passed,  and  stood  looking  out 
and  then  up  into  the  sky  with  musing  smiles.  It  was 
a  heavy  rain,  and  no  mistake. 

Win  had  a  commission  to  execute  before  he  went 


THROUGH   A   GLASS   DARKLY        2^9 

home,  and  so  passed  up  Kearney  Street  to  Post,  where, 
a  few  doors  from  the  corner,  he  entered  a  photog 
rapher's.  He  was  having  a  copy  made  on  ivory  of 
an  old  daguerreotype  of  his  father,  to  be  given  as  a 
present  to  his  mother,  and  to-day  it  was  to  be  fin 
ished. 

The  photographer,  a  clever  and  capable  man,  had 
started  the  innovation  of  having  his  studio  roughly 
lined  with  burlaps,  upon  which  photographs  of  local 
belles  and  celebrities  were  fastened  with  brass-headed 
nails.  Win,  waiting  for  his  appearance,  loitered  round 
the  room  looking  at  these,  recognizing  a  friend  here, 
and  there  a  proud  beauty  who  had  endured  him  as  a 
partner  at  the  cotillion  because  he  was  the  only  son  of 
Jake  Shackleton.  Farther  on  was  one  of  Edna  Wil- 
lers,  looking  very  lovely  and  seraphic  in  her  large-eyed 
innocence. 

On  a  small  slip  of  wall  between  two  windows  there 
was  only  one  picture  fastened,  and  as  his  eye  fell  on 
this  he  started.  It  was  Mariposa  Moreau,  in  the  lace 
dress  she  had  worn  at  the  opera,  the  face  looking  di 
rectly  and  gravely  into  his.  At  the  moment  that  his 
glance,  fresh  from  other  faces,  fell  on  it,  the  haunting 
suggestion  of  familiarity,  of  having  some  intimate  con 
nection  with  or  memory  of  it,  possessed  him  with  sud 
den,  startling  force.  Of  whom  did  she  remind  him? 

He  backed  away  from  it,  and,  as  he  did  so,  was  con 
scious  that  he  knew  exactly  the  way  her  lips  would  open 
if  she  had  been  going  to  speak,  of  the  precise  manner 
she  had  of  lifting  her  chin.  Yet  he  had  seen  her  only 
twice  in  his  life  that  he  knew  of,  and  then  in  the  half- 
dark.  It  was  not  she  that  was  known  to  him,  but 


TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 


some  one  that  she  looked  like  —  some  one  he  knew  well, 
that  had  some  vague,  yet  close  connection  with  his 
life.  He  felt  in  an  eery  way  that  his  mind  was  grop 
ingly  approaching  the  solution,  had  almost  seized  it, 
when  the  photographer's  voice  behind  him  broke  the 
thread. 

"It  will  be  ready  in  a  moment,  Mr.  Shackleton,"  he 
said.  "You're  looking  at  that  picture.  It's  a  Miss 
Moreau,  a  young  lady  who,  I  believe,  is  a  singer.  I 
put  it  there  by  itself,  as  I  was  just  a  little  proud  of  it." 

"It's  a  stunning  picture  and  no  mistake,"  said  Win, 
arranging  his  glasses,  "but  it  must  be  easy  to  make  a 
picture  of  a  girl  like  that." 

"On  the  contrary,  I  think  it's  hard.  Miss  Moreau's 
handsome,  but  it's  a  beauty  that's  more  suitable  to  a 
painter  than  a  photographer.  It's  the  coloring  that's 
so  remarkable,  so  rich  and  yet  so  refined  —  that  white 
skin  and  dark  red  hair.  That's  why  I  am  proud  of  the 
picture.  It  suggests  the  coloring,  I  think.  It  seems 
to  me  there's  something  warm  about  that  hair." 

Win  said  vaguely,  yes,  he  guessed  there  must 
be,  wondering  what  the  fellow  meant  about  there 
being  something  warm  about  the  hair.  Further  com 
ment  was  ended  by  an  attendant  coming  forward  with 
the  picture  and  handing  it  to  the  photographer. 

The  man  held  it  out  to  Win  with  a  proud  smile.  It 
was  an  enlargement  of  a  small  daguerreotype,  taken 
some  twenty  years  previously,  and  representing 
Shackleton  in  full  face  and  without  his  beard.  The 
work  had  been  excellently  done.  It  was  a  faithful  and 
spirited  likeness. 


THROUGH   A    GLASS    DARKLY        291 

As  his  eye  fell  on  it  Win  suffered  a  sudden  and 
amazing  revelation.  It  was  like  a  dazzling  flash  of 
light  tearing  away  the  shadows  of  a  dark  place. 
Through  the  obscurity  of  his  mind  enlightenment  rent 
like  a  current  of  electricity.  That  was  what  the  mem 
ory  was,  that  dim  sense  of  previous  knowledge,  that 
groping  after  something  well  known  and  yet  elusive. 

He  stared  at  the  picture,  and  then  turned  and  looked 
at  Mariposa's  hanging  on  the  wall.  The  photog 
rapher,  looking  commiseratingly  at  him,  evidently 
mistaking  his  obvious  perturbation  of  mind  for  a  rush 
of  filial  affection,  recalled  him  to  himself.  He  did  not 
know  that  he  was  pale,  but  he  saw  that  the  plate  of 
ivory  in  his  hand  trembled. 

"It's — it's — first-rate,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice.  "I'm 
tremendously  pleased.  Send  it  to  The  Trumpet  office 
to-morrow,  and  the  bill  with  it,  please.  You've  done 
an  A  number  one  job." 

He  turned  away  and  went  slowly  out,  the  photog 
rapher  and  his  assistant  looking  curiously  after  him. 
There  were  steps  to  go  down  before  he  regained  the 
street,  and  he  descended  them  in  a  maze,  the  rain 
pouring  on  his  head,  his  closed  umbrella  in  his  hand. 
It  was  all  as  clear  as  daylight  now — the  secret  search 
ing  out  of  the  mother  and  daughter,  the  interest  taken 
by  his  father  in  the  beautiful  and  talented  girl,  his  de 
sire  to  educate  and  provide  for  her.  It  was  all  as  plain 
as  A,  B,  C. 

"She  was  so  different  from  Maud  and  me,"  Win 
thought  humbly,  as  he  moved  forward  in  the  blinding 
rain.  "No  wonder  he  was  fond  of  her." 


292  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

It  was  so  astonishing,  so  simple,  and  yet  so  hard 
to  realize  in  the  first  moment  of  discovery  this  way, 
that  he  stopped  and  stood  staring  at  the  pavement. 

Two  of  his  friends,  umbrellaed  and  mackintoshed, 
bore  down  on  him,  not  recognizing  the  motionless 
figure  with  the  water  running  off  its  hat  brim  till  they 
were  close  on  him. 

"Win,  gone  crazy!"  cried  one  gaily.  "When  did  it 
come  on,  Winnie  boy  ?" 

He  looked  up  startled,  and  had  presence  of  mind 
enough  not  to  open  his  umbrella. 

"Win's  trying  to  grow,"  said  the  other,  knowing  that 
his  insignificant  size  was  a  mortification  to  the  young 
man.  "So  he's  standing  out  in  the  rain  like  a  plant." 

"Rain's  all  right,"  said  Win.     "I  like  it." 

"No  doubt  about  that,  sonny.  Only  thing  to  doubt's 
your  sanity." 

"Cute  little  day,  ain't  it  ?"  said  his  companion. 

"Win  likes  it,"  said  the  first.  "Keep  it  up,  old  chap, 
and  you'll  be  six  feet  high  before  the  winter's  over." 

And  they  went  off  cackling  to  the  club  to  tell  the 
story  of  Win,  with  the  water  pouring  off  his  hat  and  his 
glasses  damp,  standing  staring  at  the  pavement  on 
Post  Street. 

Win  opened  his  umbrella  and  went  on.  He  walked 
home  slowly  and  by  a  circuitous  route.  His  mind  tra 
versed  the  subject  back  and  forth,  and  at  each  moment 
he  became  more  convinced,  as  all  the  muddle  of  puz 
zling  circumstances  fell  into  place  in  logical  sequence. 

She  was  his  half-sister,  older  than  he  was — his 
father's  first-born.  By  this  accident  of  birth  she  was 
an  outcast,  penniless  and  unacknowledged,  from  the 


THROUGH   A   GLASS   DARKLY        293 

home  and  fortune  he  and  Maud  had  inherited.  At  the 
very  moment  when  the  father  had  found  her  free  to 
accept  his  bounty  he  had  been  snatched  away.  And 
she  knew  it.  That  was  the  explanation  of  her  change 
able  conduct.  She  had  found  it  out  in  some  way  be 
tween  the  deaths  of  her  mother  and  Shackleton.  Some 
one  had  told  her  or  she  had  discovered  it  herself. 

In  the  dripping  dark  Win  pondered  it  all,  going  up 
and  down  the  ascending  streets  in  a  tortuous  route 
homeward,  wondering  at  fate,  communing  with  him 
self. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

REBELLIOUS    HEARTS 

"Constant  you  are, 
But  yet  a  woman ;  and  for  secrecy, 
No  lady  closer,  for  I  will  believe 
Thou  wilt  not  utter  what  thou  dost  not  know." 

— SHAKESPEARE. 

Win  found  his  mother  in  her  boudoir  and  delivered 
Mrs.  Willers'  letter  to  her  without  comment.  He  saw 
her  read  it  and  then  sit  silent,  her  brows  drawn,  look 
ing  into  the  fire  beside  which  she  sat.  It  was  impossi 
ble  just  then  for  him  to  allude  to  the  subject  of  the 
letter,  and,  after  standing  by  the  mantelpiece  awk 
wardly  warming  his  wet  feet,  he  went  upstairs  to  his 
own  rooms. 

At  dinner  the  family  trio  was  unusually  quiet. 
Under  the  blaze  of  light  that  fell  from  the  great  crystal 
chandelier  over  the  table  with  its  weight  of  glass  and 
silver,  the  three  participants  looked  preoccupied  and 
stupid.  The  two  Chinese  servants,  soft-footed  as  cats, 
and  spotless  in  their  crisp  white,  moved  about  the  table 
noiselessly,  offering  dish  after  dish  to  their  impassive 
employers. 

It  was  one  of  those  irritating  occasions  when  every 
thing  seems  to  combine  for  the  purpose  of  exasperat- 

294 


REBELLIOUS   HEARTS  295 

ing.  Bessie,  annoyed  by  the  contents  of  Mrs.  Willers' 
letter,  found  her  annoyance  augmented  by  the  fact  that 
Maud  looked  particularly  plain  that  evening,  and  the 
Count  de  Lamolle  was  expected  after  dinner.  Worry 
had  robbed  her  face  of  such  sparkle  as  it  possessed  and 
had  accentuated  its  ungirlish  heaviness.  She  felt  that 
her  engagement  to  Latimer  must  be  announced,  for  the 
Count  de  Lamolle  was  exhibiting  those  signs  of  a  com 
ing  proposal  that  she  knew  well,  and  what  excuse  could 
she  give  her  mother  for  rejecting  him  ?  She  must  tell 
the  truth,  and  the  thought  alarmed  her  shrinking  and 
peaceable  soul.  She  sat  silent,  crumbling  her  bread 
with  a  nervous  hand  and  wondering  how  she  could 
possibly  avert  the  offer  if  the  count  showed  symptoms 
of  making  it  that  evening. 

After  dinner  her  mother  left  her  in  the  small  recep 
tion-room,  a  rich  and  ornate  apartment,  furnished  in 
an  oriental  manner  with  divans,  cushions,  and  Moor 
ish  hangings.  The  zeal  for  chaperonage  had  not  yet 
penetrated  to  the  West,  and  Bessie  considered  that  to 
leave  her  daughter  thus  alone  was  to  discharge  her  du 
ties  as  a  parent  with  delicate  correctness.  She  retired 
to  the  adjoining  library,  where  the  count,  on  entering, 
had  a  glimpse  of  her  sitting  in  a  low  chair,  languidly 
turning  the  pages  of  a  magazine.  He,  on  his  part,  had 
lived  in  the  West  long  enough  to  know  that  the  dis 
posal  of  the  family  in  these  segregated  units  was  what 
custom  and  conventionality  dictated. 

The  count  was  a  clever  man  and  had  studied  the 
United  States  from  other  points  of  vantage  than  the 
window  of  a  Pullman  car. 

With  the  murmur  of  his  greetings  to  Maud  in  her 


296  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

ears,  Bessie  rose  from  her  chair.  She  found  the  library 
chill  and  cheerless  after  her  cozy  boudoir  on  the  floor 
above,  and  decided  to  go  there.  Glancing  over  her 
shoulder,  as  she  mounted  the  stairs,  she  could  see  the 
count  standing  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  discoursing 
with  a  smile — a  handsome,  personable  man,  with  his 
dark  face  and  pointed  beard  looking  darker  than  ever 
over  his  gleaming  expanse  of  shirt  bosom.  It  would 
be  an  entirely  desirable  marriage  for  Maud.  Bessie 
had  found  out  all  about  the  count's  position  and  title  in 
his  native  land,  and  both  were  all  that  he  said  they  were, 
which  had  satisfied  and  surprised  her. 

In  her  own  room  she  sat  down  before  the  fire  to 
think.  Maud's  future  was  in  her  own  hands  now, 
molding  itself  into  shape  downstairs  in  the  reception- 
room.  Bessie  could  do  no  more  toward  directing  it 
than  she  had  already  done,  and  her  active  mind  imme 
diately  seized  on  the  other  subject  that  had  been  en 
grossing  it.  She  drew  out  Mrs.  Willers'  letter  and 
read  it  again.  Then  crumpling  it  in  her  hand,  she 
looked  into  the  fire  with  eyes  of  somber  perplexity. 

What  was  the  matter  with  the  girl?  Mrs.  Willers 
stated  positively  that,  as  far  as  she  could  ascertain, 
there  was  no  man  that  had  the  slightest  influence  over 
Mariposa  Moreau's  affections.  She  was  acting  entirely 
on  her  own  volition.  But  what  had  made  her  change 
her  mind,  Mrs.  Willers  did  not  know.  Something 
had  undoubtedly  occurred,  she  thought,  that  had  influ 
enced  Mariposa  to  a  total  reversal  of  opinion.  Mrs. 
Willers  said  she  could  not  imagine  what  this  was,  but 
it  had  changed  the  girl,  not  only  in  ambition  and  point 
of  view,  but  in  character. 


REBELLIOUS    HEARTS  297 

The  letter  frightened  Bessie.  It  had  made  her  silent 
all  through  dinner,  and  now  brooding  over  the  fire,  she 
thought  of  what  it  might  mean  and  felt  a  cold  appre 
hension  seize  her.  Could  Mariposa  know?  Her  be 
havior  and  conduct  since  Shackleton's  death  suggested 
such  a  possibility.  It  was  incredible  to  think  of,  but 
Lucy  might  have  told.  And  also,  might  not  the  girl, 
in  arranging  her  mother's  effects  after  her  death,  have 
come  on  something,  letters  or  papers,  which  had  re 
vealed  the  past  ? 

A  memory  rose  up  in  Bessie's  mind  of  the  girl  wife 
she  had  supplanted,  clinging  to  the  marriage  certificate, 
which  was  all  that  remained  to  remind  her  of  the  days 
when  she  had  been  the  one  lawful  wife.  Bessie  knew 
that  this  paper  had  been  carefully  tied  in  the  bundle 
which  held  Lucy's  few  possessions  when  they  left  Salt 
Lake.  She  knew  it  was  still  in  the  bundle  when  she, 
herself,  had  handed  it  to  the  deserted  girl  in  front  of 
Moreau's  cabin.  Might  not  Mariposa  have  found  it? 

She  rose  and  walked  about  the  room,  feeling  sick  at 
the  thought.  She  was  no  longer  young,  and  her  iron 
nerve  had  been  permanently  shaken  by  the  suddenness 
of  her  husband's  death.  Mariposa,  with  her  mother's 
marriage  certificate,  might  be  plotting  some  desperate 
coup.  No  wonder  she  refused  to  go  to  Paris !  If  she 
could  establish  her  claim  as  Shackleton's  eldest  and 
only  legitimate  child,  she  would  not  only  sweep  from 
Win  and  Maud  the  lion's  share  of  their  inheritance,  but, 
equally  unbearable,  she  would  drag  to  the  light  the 
ugly  story — the  terrible  story  that  Jake  Shackleton  and 
his  second  wife  had  so  successfully  hidden. 

Her  thoughts  were  suddenly  broken  in  on  by  the 


298  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

bang  of  the  front  door.  She  looked  at  the  clock  and 
saw  it  was  only  nine.  If  it  was  the  count  who  was 
going  he  had  stayed  less  than  an  hour.  What  had  hap 
pened  ?  She  moved  to  the  door  and  listened. 

She  heard  a  light  step,  slowly  and  furtively  mounting 
the  stairs.  It  was  Maud,  for,  though  she  could  attempt 
to  deaden  her  footfall,  she  could  not  hush  the  rustling 
of  her  silken  skirts.  As  the  sweeping  sound  reached 
the  stair-head,  Bessie  opened  her  door.  Maud  stopped 
short,  her  black  dress  fading  into  the  darkness  about 
her,  so  that  her  white  face  seemed  to  be  floating  unat 
tached  through  the  air  like  an  optical  delusion. 

"Why,  mommer,"  she  said,  falteringly,  "I  thought 
you  were  in  bed." 

"Has  the  count  gone?"  queried  her  mother,  with  an 
unusual  sternness  of  tone. 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl,  "he's  gone.  He — he — went 
early  to-night." 

"Why  did  he  go  so  early?" 

"He  didn't  want  to  stay  any  longer." 

Maud  was  terrified.  Her  hand  clutching  the  balus 
trade  was  trembling  and  icy.  In  her  father's  lifetime 
she  had  known  that  she  would  never  dare  to  tell  of  her 
engagement  to  Latimer.  She  would  have  ended  by 
eloping.  Now,  the  fear  of  her  mother,  who  had  always 
been  the  gentler  parent,  froze  her  timid  soul,  and  even 
the  joy  of  her  love  seemed  swamped  in  this  dreadful 
moment  of  confession. 

"Did  the  count  ask  you  to  marry  him  ?"  said  Bessie. 

"Yes!  and — "  with  tremulous  desperation,  "I  said 
no,  I  couldn't." 


REBELLIOUS   HEARTS  299 

"You  said  no!  that's  not  possible.  You  couldn't  be 
such  a  fool." 

"Well,  I  was,  and  I  said  it." 

"Come  in  here,  Maud,"  said  her  mother,  standing 
back  from  the  doorway;  "we  can't  talk  sensibly  this 
way." 

But  Maud  did  not  move. 

"No,  I  don't  want  to  go  in  there,"  she  said,  like  a 
naughty  child ;  "there's  nothing  to  talk  about.  I  don't 
want  to  marry  him  and  I  told  him  so  and  he's  gone, 
and  that's  the  end  of  it." 

"The  end  of  it!  That's  nonsense.  I  want  you  to 
marry  Count  de  Lamolle.  I  don't  want  to  hear  silly 
talk  like  this.  I'll  write  to  him  to-morrow." 

"Well,  it  won't  do  you  or  him  any  good,"  said 
Maud,  to  whom  fear  was  giving  courage,  "for  I  won't 
marry  him,  and  neither  you  nor  he  can  drag  me  to  the 
altar  if  I  won't  go.  It's  not  the  time  of  the  Crusades." 

If  Maud's  allusion  was  not  precisely  illuminating, 
her  mother  understood  it. 

"It  may  not  be  the  time  of  the  Crusades,"  she  said, 
grimly,  "but  neither  is  it  a  time  when  girls  can  be  fools 
and  no  one  hold  out  a  hand  to  check  them.  Do  you 
realize  what  this  marriage  means  for  you?  Position, 
title,  an  entrance  into  society  that  you  never  in  any 
other  way  could  put  as  much  as  the  end  of  your  nose 
into." 

"If  I  don't  want  to  put  even  the  end  of  my  nose  into 
it,  what  good  does  it  do  me  ?  You  know  I  hate  society. 
I  hate  going  to  dinners  and  sitting  beside  people  who 
talk  to  me  about  things  I  don't  understand  or  care  for. 


300  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

I  hate  going  to  balls  and  dancing  round  and  round  like 
a  teetotum  with  men  I  don't  like.  And  if  it's  bad  here, 
what  would  it  be  over  there  where  I  don't  speak  their 
language  or  know  their  ways,  and  they'd  think  I  was 
just  something  queer  and  savage  the  count  had  caught 
over  here  with  a  lasso." 

Fears  and  doubts  she  had  never  spoken  of  to  any 
one  but  Latimer  came  glibly  to  her  lips  in  this  mo 
ment  of  misery.  Her  mother  was  surprised  at  her 
fluency. 

"You're  piling  up  objections  out  of  nothing,"  she 
said.  "When  those  people  over  in  France  know  what 
your  fortune  is,  make  no  mistake,  they'll  be  only  too 
glad  to  know  you  and  be  your  friend.  They'll  not 
think  you  queer  and  savage.  You'll  be  on  the  top  of 
everything  over  there,  not  just  one  of  a  bunch  of 
bonanza  heiresses,  as  you  are  here.  And  the  count? 
Do  you  know  any  one  so  handsome,  so  gentlemanly, 
so  elegant  and  polite  in  San  Francisco  ?" 

"I  know  a  man  I  like  better,"  said  Maud,  in  a  muf 
fled  voice. 

The  white  face,  with  its  dimly  suggested  figure, 
looked  whiter  than  ever. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?"  said  her  mother, 
stiffening. 

"I  mean  Jack  Latimer." 

"Jack  Latimer  ?  One  of  your  father's  clerks !  Maud, 
come  in  here  at  once.  I  can't  stand  talking  in  the  hall 
of  things  like  this." 

"No,  I  won't  come  in,"  cried  Maud,  backing  away 
against  the  baluster,  and  feeling  as  she  used  to  do  in 
her  juvenile  days,  when  she  was  hauled  by  the  hand 


REBELLIOUS    HEARTS  301 

to  the  scene  of  punishment.  "There's  nothing  more 
to  talk  about.  I'm  engaged  to  Jack  Latimer,  and  I'm 
going  to  marry  him,  and  that's  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  it  all." 

She  felt  desperately  defiant,  standing  there  in  the 
darkness  looking  at  her  mother's  massive  shape 
against  the  glow  of  the  lit  doorway. 

"Jack  Latimer!"  reiterated  Mrs.  Shackleton,  "who 
only  gets  a  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  month  and  has 
to  give  some  of  it  to  his  people." 

"Well,  haven't  I  got  enough  for  two?" 

"Maud,  you've  gone  crazy.  All  I  know  is  that  I'll 
not  let  you  spoil  your  future.  I'll  write  to  Count  de 
Lamolle  to-morrow,  and  I'll  write  to  Jack  Latimer, 
too." 

"What  good  will  that  do  anybody?  Count  de  La 
molle  can't  marry  me  if  I  don't  want  to.  And  why 
should  Jack  Latimer  throw  me  over  because  you  ask 
him  to?  He,"  she  made  a  tremulous  hesitation  that 
would  have  touched  a  softer  heart,  and  then  added, 
"he  likes  me." 

"Likes   you!"   repeated   her   mother,    with   furious   > 
scorn,  "he  likes  the  five  million  dollars." 

"It's  me,"  said  Maud,  passionately;  "it  isn't  the 
money.  And  he's  the  only  person  in  the  world  except 
Win  who  has  ever  really  liked  me.  I  don't  feel  when 
I'm  with  him  that  I'm  so  ugly  and  stupid,  the  way  I 
feel  with  everybody  else.  He  likes  to  hear  me  talk, 
and  when  he  looks  at  me  I  don't  feel  as  if  he  was  say 
ing  to  himself,  'What  an  ugly  girl  she  is,  anyway.' 
But  I  feel  that  he  doesn't  know  whether  I'm  pretty  or 
ugly.  He  only  knows  he  loves  me  the  way  I  am." 


302  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

She  burst  into  wild  tears,  and  before  her  mother 
could  answer  or  arrest  her,  had  brushed  past  her  and 
fled  up  the  next  flight  of  stairs,  the  sound  of  her 
sobs  floating  down  from  the  upper  darkness  to  the 
listener's  ears.  Bessie  retreated  into  the  boudoir  and 
shut  the  door. 

Maud  ran  on  and  burst  into  her  own  room,  there 
to  throw  herself  on  the  bed  and  weep  despairingly  for 
hours.  She  thought  of  her  lover,  the  one  human  being 
besides  her  brother  who  had  never  made  her  feel  her 
inferiority,  and  lying  limp  and  shaken  among  the  pil 
lows,  thought,  with  a  wild  thrill  of  longing  of  the 
time  when  she  would  be  free  to  creep  into  his  arms 
and  hide  the  ugly  face  he  found  so  satisfactory  upon 
his  heart. 

In  the  morning,  before  she  was  up,  Bessie  visited 
her  and  renewed  the  conversation  of  the  night  before. 
Poor  Maud,  with  a  throbbing  head  and  heavy  eyes,  lay 
helpless,  answering  questions  that  probed  the  tender 
secrets  of  the  clandestine  courtship,  which  had  been 
to  her  an  oasis  of  almost  terrifying  happiness  in  the 
lonely  repression  of  her  life.  Finally,  unable  longer 
to  endure  her  mother's  sarcastic  allusions  to  Latimer's 
disingenuousness,  she  sprang  out  of  bed  and  ran  into 
the  bath-room,  which  was  part  of  the  suite  she  occu 
pied.  Here  she  turned  on  both  taps,  the  sound  of  the 
rushing  water  completely  drowning  her  mother's 
voice,  and  sitting  on  the  side  of  the  tub,  looked  drear 
ily  down  into  the  bath,  while  Bessie's  concluding  and 
indignant  sentences  rose  from  the  outer  side  of  the 
door. 

Mrs.  Shackleton  lunched  alone  that  day.    Win  gen- 


REBELLIOUS    HEARTS  303 

erally  went  to  his  club  for  his  midday  meal,  and  Maud 
had  gone  out  early  and  found  hospitality  at  the  house 
of  Pussy  Thurston.  Bessie  had  done  more  thinking 
that  morning  in  the  intervals  of  her  domestic  duties — 
she  was  a  notable  housekeeper  and  personally  super 
intended  every  department  of  her  establishment — 
and  had  decided  to  dedicate  part  of  the  afternoon  to 
the  society  of  Mrs.  Willers.  One  of  the  secrets  of 
Mrs.  Shackleton's  success  in  life  had  been  her  power 
to  control  and  retain  interests  in  divers  matters  at  the 
same  time.  Maud's  unpleasant  news  had  not  pushed 
the  even  more  weighty  subject  of  Mariposa  into  abey 
ance.  It  was  as  prominent  as  ever  in  the  widow's 
mind. 

She  drove  down  to  The  Trumpet  office  soon  after 
lunch  and  slowly  mounted  the  long  stairs.  It  would 
have  been  a  hardship  for  any  other  woman  of  her 
years  and  weight,  but  Bessie's  bodily  energy  was  still 
remarkable,  and  she  had  never  indulged  herself  in  the 
luxury  of  laziness.  At  the  top  of  the  fourth  flight  she 
paused,  panting,  while  the  astonished  office-boy  stared 
at  her,  recognizing  her  as  the  chief's  mother. 

Mrs.  Willers  was  in  her  cubby-hole,  with  a  drop- 
light  sending  a  little  circle  of  yellow  radiance  over  the 
middle  of  the  desk.  A  litter  of  newspaper  cuttings 
surrounded  her,  and  Miss  Peebles,  at  the  moment  of 
Mrs.  Shackleton's  entrance,  was  in  the  cane-bottomed 
chair,  in  which  aspirants  for  journalistic  honors  usual 
ly  sat.  The  rustle  of  Mrs.  Shackleton's  silks  and  the 
faint  advancing  perfume  that  preceded  her,  announced 
an  arrival  of  unusual  distinction,  and  Miss  Peebles 
had  turned  uneasily  in  the  chair  and  Mrs.  Willers  was 


304  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

peering  out  from  the  circle  of  the  drop-light,  when  the 
lady  entered  the  room. 

Miss  Peebles  rose  with  a  flurried  haste  and  thrust 
forward  the  chair,  and  Mrs.  Willers  extricated  herself 
from  the  heaped  up  newspapers  and  extended  a  wel 
coming  hand.  The  greetings  ended,  the  younger 
woman  bowed  herself  out,  her  opinion  of  Mrs.  Wil 
lers,  if  possible,  higher  even  than  it  had  been  before. 

Mrs.  Willers  was  surprised,  but  discreetly  refrained 
from  showing  it.  She  had  known  Mrs.  Shackleton 
for  several  years,  and  had  once  heard,  from  her  late 
chief,  that  his  wife  approved  her  matter  and  counseled 
her  advancement. 

But  to  have  her  appear  thus  unannounced  in  the 
intimate  heat  and  burden  of  office  hours  was  decidedl> 
unexpected.  Mrs.  Shackleton  knew  this  and  pro 
ceeded  to  explain. 

"You  must  think  it  queer,  my  coming  down  on  you 
this  way,  when  you're  up  to  your  neck  in  work,  but  I 
won't  keep  you  ten  minutes."  She  looked  at  the  small 
nickel  clock  that  ticked  aggressively  in  the  middle  of 
the  desk.  "And  I  know  you  are  too  busy  a  woman  to 
ask  you  to  come  all  the  way  up  to  my  house.  So  I've 
come  down  to  you." 

"Pleased  and  flattered,"  murmured  Mrs  Willers, 
pushing  back  her  chair,  and  kicking  a  space  in  the 
newspapers,  so  that  she  could  cross  her  knees  at  ease. 
"But,  don't  hurry,  Mrs.  Shackleton.  Work's  well  on 
and  I'm  at  your  disposal  for  a  good  many  ten  min 
utes." 

"It's  just  to  talk  over  that  letter  you  sent  me  by  Win. 


REBELLIOUS   HEARTS  305 

What  do  you  understand  by  Miss  Moreau's  behavior, 
Mrs.  Willers?" 

"I  don't  understand  anything  by  it.  I  don't  under 
stand  it  at  all." 

"That's  the  way  it  seems  to  me.  There's  only  one 
explanation  of  it  that  I  can  see,  and  you  say  that 
isn't  the  right  one." 

"What  was  that?" 

"That  there's  some  man  here  she's  interested  in. 
When  a  girl  of  that  age,  without  a  cent,  or  a  friend  or 
a  prospect,  refuses  an  offer  that  means  a  successful  and 
maybe  a  famous  future,  what's  a  person  to  think? 
Something's  stopping  her.  And  the  only  thing  I  know 
of  that  would  stop  her  is  that  she's  fallen  in  love.  But 
you  say  she  hasn't." 

"She  don't  strike  me  as  being  so.  She  don't  talk 
like  a  girl  in  love." 

"Is  there  any  man  who  is  interested  in  her  and  sees 
her  continually?" 

Mrs.  Willers  was  naturally  a  truthful  woman,  but 
a  hard  experience  of  life  had  taught  her  to  prevaricate 
with  skill  and  coolness  when  she  thought  the  occasion 
demanded  it.  She  saw  no  menace  now,  however,  and 
was  entirely  in  sympathy  with  Mrs.  Shackleton  in 
her  annoyance  at  Mariposa's  irritating  behavior. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  nodding  with  grave  eyes,  "there  is 
a  man." 

"Oh,  there  is,"  said  the  other,  bending  forward  with 
a  sudden  eager  interest  that  was  not  lost  upon  Mrs. 
Willers.  "Who?" 

"One  of  our  men  here,  Barry  Essex." 


306  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Essex!"  exclaimed  the  widow,  with  a  sudden  light 
of  relieved  comprehension  suffusing  her  glance.  "Of 
course.  I  know  him.  That  dark,  foreign-looking  man 
that  nobody  knows  anything  about.  Mr.  Shackleton 
thought  a  great  deal  of  him ;  said  he  was  thrown  away 
on  The  Trumpet.  He's  not  a  bit  an  ordinary  sort  of 
person." 

"That's  the  one,"  said  Mrs.  Willers,  nodding  her 
head  in  somber  acquiescence.  "And  you're  right  about 
nobody  knowing  anything  about  him.  He's  a  dark 
mystery,  I  think." 

"And  you  say  he's  in  love  with  her?" 

"That's  what  I'd  infer  from  what  she  tells  me." 

"What  does  she  tel)  you?" 

"He's  asked  her  to  marry  him." 

"Then  they're  engaged.  That  accounts  for  the 
whole  thing." 

"No,  they're  not  engaged.     She's  refused  him." 

"Refused  him?  That  girl  who's  been  living  in  an 
adobe  at  Santa  Barbara,  refuse  that  fine-looking  fel 
low?  Why,  she'll  never  see  a  man  like  that  again  in 
her  life.  She's  not  refused  him  ?  Of  course,  she's  en 
gaged  to  him." 

"No,  you're  mistaken.  She's  not.  She  doesn't  like 
him." 

"That's  what  she  tells  you.  Girls  always  say  that 
sort  of  thing.  That  explains  the  way  she's  acted 
from  the  start.  He  hadn't  asked  her  when  Mr.  Shack 
leton  was  alive.  She's  engaged  to  him  now  and 
doesn't  want  to  leave  him.  She  struck  me  as  just 
that  soft,  sentimental  sort." 

"You're  wrong,  Mrs.  Shackleton ;  I  know  Mariposa 


REBELLIOUS   HEARTS  307 

Moreau.  She  tells  the  truth;  all  of  it.  That's  why 
it's  so  hard  sometimes  to  understand  what  she  means. 
We're  not  used  to  it.  She  doesn't  like  that  man,  and 
she  wouldn't  marry  him  if  he  was  hung  all  over  with 
diamonds  and  was  going  to  give  her  the  Con  Virginia 
for  a  wedding  present." 

"Bosh!"  ejaculated  her  companion,  with  sudden, 
sharp  irritation.  "That's  what  she  says.  They  have 
no  money  to  marry  on,  I  suppose,  and  she's  trying  to 
keep  her  engagement  secret.  It  explains  everything. 
I  must  say  I'm  relieved.  I  had  the  girl  on  my  mind, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  she  was  so  senseless  and  fly-away 
that  you  didn't  know  where  she'd  fetch  up." 

Mrs.  Willers  was  annoyed.  It  was  not  pleasant  to 
her  to  hear  Mariposa  spoken  of  this  way.  But  a  long 
life  of  struggle  and  misfortune  had  taught  her,  among 
other  valuable  things,  the  art  of  hiding  unprofitable 
anger  under  a  bland  smile. 

"Well,  all  I  can  say,"  she  said,  laughing  quite  natu 
rally,  "is  that  I  hope  you're  wrong.  I'm  sure  I  don't 
want  to  see  her  married  to  that  man." 

"Why  not?"  queried  Mrs.  Shackleton,  with  the 
sudden  arrested  glance  of  surprised  curiosity.  "What 
is  there  to  object  to  in  such  a  marriage?" 

"Hundreds  of  things,"  answered  Mrs.  Willers,  feel 
ing  that  there  are  many  disadvantages  in  having  to 
converse  with  your  employer's  mother  on  the  subject 
of  one  of  your  best  friends.  "Who  knows  anything 
about  Barry  Essex?  No  one  knows  where  he  comes 
from,  or  who  he  is,  or  even  if  Essex  is  his  name.  I 
don't  believe  it  is,  at  all.  I  think  he  just  took  it  because 
it  sounds  like  the  aristocracy.  And  what's  his  record? 


308  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

I'll  lay  ten  to  one  there  are  things  behind  him  he 
wouldn't  like  to  see  published  on  the  f ron^  page  of  The 
Trumpet.  He's  no  man  to  make  a  girl  happy." 

"You  seem  to  be  taking  a  good  deal  for  granted. 
Because  you  don't  know  anything  about  him,  it's  no 
reason  to  suppose  the  worst.  He  certainly  looks  and 
acts  like  a  gentleman,  and  he's  finely  educated.  And 
isn't  it  better  for  a  girl  like  Miss  Moreau  to  have  a 
husband  to  take  care  of  her  than  to  go  roaming  around 
by  herself,  throwing  away  every  chance  she  gets,  for 
some  crazy  notion?  That  young  woman's  not  able  to 
take  care  of  herself.  The  best  thing  for  her  is  to  get 
Barry  Essex  to  do  it  for  her." 

"I've  known  women,"  said  Mrs.  Willers,  judicially, 
"who  thought  that  a  bad  husband  was  better  than  no 
husband  at  all.  But  I'm  not  of  that  opinion  myself, 
having  had  one  of  the  bad  ones.  Solomon  said  a  cor 
ner  of  a  housetop  and  a  dinner  of  herbs  was  better 
than  a  wide  house  with  a  brawling  woman.  And  I 
tell  you  that  one  room  in  Tar  Flat  and  beef's  liver  for 
every  meal  is  better  than  a  palace  on  Nob  Hill  with  a 
husband  that's  no  account." 

"I'm  afraid  you're  inclined  to  look  on  the  dark  side 
of  matrimony,"  said  Mrs.  Shackleton,  laughing,  as 
she  rose  from  her  chair. 

"May  be  so,"  said  the  other ;  "but  after  my  experi 
ence  I  don't  think  it  such  a  blissful  state  that  I  want 
to  round  up  all  my  friends  and  drive  them  into  the 
corral,  whether  they  want  to  go  or  not." 

Mrs.  Shackleton  looked  down  for  a  pondering  mo 
ment.  She  was  evidently  not  listening.  Raising  her 


REBELLIOUS   HEARTS  309 

head  she  met  Mrs.  Willers'  half-sad,  half-twinkling 
eyes  with  a  gaze  of  keen  scrutiny,  and  said : 

"Then  if  it  isn't  a  love  affair,  what  is  it  that's  made 
Miss  Moreau  change  her  mind?" 

"Ah!"  Mrs.  Willers  shrugged  her  shoulders. 
"That's  what  I'd  like  to  know  as  well  as  you.  I  can 
only  say  what  it's  not." 

"And  that's  Barry  Essex.  Well,  Mrs.  Willers, 
you're  a  smart  woman,  but  you  know  your  business 
better  than  you  do  the  vagaries  of  young  girls.  I  don't 
know  Miss  Moreau  well,  but  I'd  like  to  bet  that  I  un 
derstand  her  this  time  better  than  you  do." 

She  smiled  genially  and  held  out  her  hand. 

"My  ten  minutes  are  up,"  nodding  at  the  clock. 
"And  I'm  too  much  of  a  business  woman  to  outstay 
my  time  limit.  No" — in  answer  to  Mrs.  Willers'  po 
lite  demur — "I  must  go." 

She  moved  toward  the  door,  then  paused  and  said: 

"Isn't  Essex  a  sort  of  Frenchman?  Or  wasn't  he, 
anyway,  brought  up  in  Paris,  or  had  a  French  mother, 
or  something?" 

"As  to  his  mother,"  said  Mrs.  Willers,  sourly,  "the 
Lord  alone  knows  who  she  was.  I've  heard  she  was 
everything  from  the  daughter  of  a  duke  to  a  snake- 
charmer  in  a  dime  museum.  But  he  told  me  he  was 
born  and  partly  educated  in  Paris,  and  Madame  Ber- 
trand,  at  the  Rotisserie,  tells  me  he  must  have  been,  as 
he  talks  real  French  French,  not  the  kind  you  learn  out 
of  a  book." 

"He  certainly  looks  like  a  Frenchman,"  said  the  de 
parting  guest.  "Well,  good  by.  It's  a  sort  of  bond  be- 


310  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

tween  us  to  try  to  settle  to  her  advantage  this  silly 
girl  who  doesn't  want  to  be  settled.  If  you  hear  any 
more  of  her  affair  with  Essex,  you  might  let  me  know. 
In  spite  of  my  criticisms,  I  take  the  greatest  interest  in 
her.  I  wouldn't  criticize  if  I  didn't." 

As  Mrs.  Shackleton  was  slowly  descending  the  long 
stairs,  Mrs.  Willers  still  stood  beside  her  desk,  think 
ing.  The  visit  had  surprised  her  in  the  beginning. 
Now  it  left  her  feeling  puzzled  and  vaguely  disturbed. 
Why  did  Mrs.  Shackleton  seem  to  be  so  desirous  of 
thinking  that  Mariposa  was  betrothed  to  Essex?  The 
bonanza  king's  widow  was  a  woman  of  large  chari 
ties  and  carelessly  magnificent  generosities,  but  she  was 
also  a  woman  of  keen  insight  and  unwavering  com 
mon  sense.  Her  interest  in  Mariposa  was  as  strong 
as  her  husband's,  and  was  entirely  explainable  as  his 
had  been,  in  the  light  of  their  old  acquaintance  with 
the  girl's  father.  What  Mrs.  Willers  could  not  un 
derstand  was  how  any  person,  who  had  Mariposa 
Moreau's  welfare  at  heart,  could  derive  satisfaction 
from  the  thought  of  her  marrying  Barry  Essex. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

FRIEND   AND   BROTHER 

"Wisdom  is  good  with  an  inheritance,  and  by  it  there  is 
profit  to  them  that  see  the  sun." — ECCLESIASTES. 

Mariposa's  sixteen  dollars  a  month  had  been  aug 
mented  to  twenty-eight  by  the  accession  of  three  new 
pupils.  These  had  been  acquired  through  Isaac  Pier- 
pont,  who  was  glad  to  find  a  cheap  teacher  for  his 
potential  prima  donnas,  who  were  frequently  lacking 
in  the  simplest  knowledge  of  instrumental  music. 

Mariposa  was  impressed  and  flattered  by  her  ex 
tended  clientele,  and  at  first  felt  some  embarrassment 
in  finding  that  one  of  the  pupils  was  a  woman  ten  years 
older  than  herself.  The  worry  she  had  felt  on  the 
score  of  her  living  was  now  at  rest,  for  Pierpont  had 
promised  her  his  continued  aid,  and  her  new  scholars 
professed  themselves  much  pleased  with  her  efforts. 

Her  monthly  earnings  were  sufficient  to  cover  her 
exceedingly  modest  living  expenses.  The  remnants  of 
her  fortune — the  few  dollars  left  after  her  mother's 
funeral  and  the  money  realized  by  the  sale  of  the 
jewelry  and  furniture  that  were  the  last  relics  of  their 
beaux  jours — made  up  the  amount  of  three  hundred 
and  twenty  dollars.  This  was  in  the  bank.  In  the 
little  desk  that  stood  on  a  table  in  her  room  was  the 


312  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

five  hundred  dollars  in  gold  Shackleton  had  sent  her. 
She  had  not  touched  it  and  never  intended  to,  seeming 
to  repudiate  its  possession  by  keeping  it  thus  secret  and 
apart  from  her  other  store. 

The  time  was  wearing  on  toward  mid-December. 
Christmas  was  beginning  to  figure  in  the  conversation 
of  Miguel  and  Benito,  and  with  an  eye  to  its  approach 
they  had  both  joined  a  Sunday-school,  to  which  they 
piously  repaired  every  Sabbath  morn.  They  had  intro 
duced  the  question  of  presents  in  their  conversations 
with  Mariposa  with  such  smiling  persistence  that  she 
had  finally  promised  them  that,  on  her  first  free  after 
noon,  she  would  go  down  town  and  price  certain  ar 
ticles  they  coveted.  The  afternoon  came  within  a  few 
days  after  her  promise,  one  of  her  pupils  sending  her 
word  that  she  was  invited  out  of  town  for  the  holidays, 
and  her  lessons  would  cease  till  after  New  Year's. 

The  pricing  had  evidently  been  satisfactory,  for, 
late  in  the  afternoon,  Mariposa  turned  her  face  home 
ward,  her  hands  full  of  small  packages.  It  was  one 
of  the  clear,  hazeless  days  of  thin  atmosphere,  with 
an  edge  of  cold,  that  are  scattered  through  the  San 
Francisco  winter.  There  is  no  frost  in  the  air,  but 
the  chill  has  a  searching  quality  which  suggests  winter, 
as  does  the  wild  radiance  of  the  sunset  spread  over  the 
west  in  a  transparent  wash  of  red.  The  invigorating 
breath  of  cold  made  the  young  girl's  blood  glow,  and 
she  walked  rapidly  along  Kearney  Street,  the  exercise 
in  the  sharp  air  causing  a  faint,  unusual  pink  to  tint 
her  cheeks.  Her  intention  was  to  walk  to  Clay  Street 
and  then  take  the  cable-car,  which  in  those  days  slid 


FRIEND   AND    BROTHER  313 

slowly  up  the  long  hills,  past  the  Plaza  and  through 
Chinatown. 

She  was  near  the  Plaza,  when  a  hail  behind  her  fell 
on  her  ear,  and  turning,  she  saw  Barren  close  on  her 
heels,  his  hands  also  full  of  small  packages.  He  had 
been  at  the  mines  for  two  weeks,  and  she  could  but  no 
tice  the  unaffected  gladness  of  his  greeting.  She  felt 
glad,  too,  a  circumstance  of  which,  for  some  occult 
reason,  she  was  ashamed,  and  the  shame  and  the  glad 
ness  combined  lent  a  reserved  and  yet  conscious  quality 
to  her  smile  and  kindled  a  charming  embarrassment  in 
her  eye.  They  stood  by  the  curb,  he  looking  at  her 
with  glances  of  na'ive  admiration,  while  she  looked 
down  at  her  parcels.  Passers-by  noticed  them,  setting 
them  down,  she  in  her  humble  dress,  he  in  his  unmetro- 
politan  roughness  of  aspect,  as  a  couple  from  the  coun 
try,  a  rancher  or  miner  and  his  handsome  sweetheart. 

He  took  her  parcels  away  from  her,  and  they  started 
forward  toward  the  Plaza. 

"Do  you  hear  me  panting?"  he  said,  laying  his  free 
hand  on  his  chest. 

"No,  why  should  you  pant?" 

"Because  I've  been  running  all  down  Kearney  Street 
for  blocks  after  you.  I  never  knew  any  one  to  walk  as 
fast  in  my  life.  I  thought  even  if  I  didn't  catch  you 
you'd  hear  me  panting  behind  you  and  think  it  was 
some  new  kind  of  fire-engine  and  turn  round  and  look. 
But  you  never  wavered — simply  went  on  like  a  racer 
headed  for  the  goal.  Did  you  walk  so  fast  because 
you  knew  I  was  behind  you?" 

She  looked  at  him  quickly  with  a  side  glance  of 


314  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

protest  and  met  his  eyes  full  of  quizzical  humor  and 
yet  with  a  gleam  of  something  eager  and  earnest  in 
them. 

"I  like  to  walk  fast  in  this  cold  air.  It  makes  me  feel 
so  alive.  For  a  long  time  I've  felt  as  though  I  were 
half  dead,  and  you  don't  know  how  exhilarating  it  is 
to  feel  life  come  creeping  back.  It's  like  being  able 
to  breathe  freely  after  you've  been  almost  suffocated. 
But  where  did  you  see  me  on  Kearney  Street  ?" 

"I  was  in  a  place  buying  things  for  the  boys.  I 
was  looking  at  a  drum  for  Benito,  and  I  just  happened 
to  glance  up,  and  there  you  were  passing.  I  dropped 
the  drum  and  ran." 

"A  drum  for  Benito!  Oh,  Mr.  Barren,  don't  get 
Benito  a  drum!" 

He  could  not  control  his  laughter  at  the  sight  of  her 
expression  of  horrified  protest.  He  laughed  so  loudly 
that  people  looked  at  him.  She  smiled  herself,  not 
quite  knowing  why,  and  insensibly,  both  feeling 
curiously  light-hearted,  they  drew  closer  together. 

"What  can  I  get?"  he  said.  "I  looked  at  knives 
and  guns,  and  I  knew  that  they  wouldn't  do.  Benito 
would  certainly  kill  Miguel  and  probably  grandma. 
I  thought  of  a  bat  and  ball,  and  then  I  knew  he'd 
break  all  the  windows.  The  man  in  the  store  wanted 
me  to  buy  a  bow  and  arrow,  but  I  saw  him  taking  his 
revenge  on  the  crab  lady.  Benito's  a  serious  problem 
any  way  you  take  him." 

They  had  come  to  the  Plaza,  once  an  open  space  of 
sand,  round  which  the  wild,  pioneer  city  swept  in  whirl 
pool  currents,  now  already  showing  the  lichened  brick 
and  dropping  plaster,  the  sober  line  of  house  fronts,  of 


FRIEND   AND    BROTHER  315 

an  aging  locality.  Where  Chinatown  backed  on 
the  square  the  houses  had  grown  oriental,  their  western 
ugliness,  disguised  by  the  touch  of  gilding  that,  here 
and  there,  incrusted  their  fronts,  the  swaying  of  crim 
son  lanterns,  the  green  zigzags  of  dwarf  trees.  Over 
the  top  of  the  Clay  Street  hill  the  west  shone  red 
through  smoke  which  filled  the  air  with  a  keen,  acrid 
smell.  It  told  of  hearth-fires.  And  oozing  out  of  a 
thousand  chimneys  and  streaming  across  the  twilight 
city  it  told  of  homes  where  the  good  wife  made  ready 
for  her  man. 

"Let's  not  take  the  cars,"  said  Barren.  "Let's  walk 
home.  Can  you  manage  those  hills  ?" 

She  gave  a  laughing  assent,  and  they  turned  up 
ward,  walking  slowly  as  befitted  the  climb.  Chinatown 
opened  before  them  like  the  mysterious,  medieval  haunt 
of  robbers  in  an  old  drawing.  The  murky  night  was 
settling  on  it,  shot  through  with  red  gleams  at  the  end 
of  streets,  where  the  sunset  pried  into  its  peopled 
darkness.  The  blackness  of  yawning  doorway  and 
stealthy  alley  succeeded  the  brilliancy  of  a  gilded  in 
terior,  or  a  lantern-lit  balcony.  Strange  smells  were 
in  the  air,  aromatic  and  noisome,  as  though  the  dwellers 
in  this  domain  were  concocting  their  wizard  brews. 
There  was  a  sound  of  shifting  feet,  a  chatter  of  gut 
tural  voices,  and  a  vision  of  faces  passing  from  light 
to  shadow,  marked  by  a  weird  similarity,  and  with  eyes 
like  bits  of  onyx  let  into  the  tight-drawn  skin. 

It  was  an  alien  city,  a  bit  of  the  oldest  civilization  in 
the  world,  imbedded  in  the  heart  of  the  newest. 
Touches  of  bizarre,  of  sinister  picturesqueness  filled  it 
with  arresting  interest.  On  the  window-sills  lilies, 


316  -TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

their  stalks  bound  with  strips  of  crimson  paper,  grew 
in  blue  and  white  china  bowls  filled  with  pebbles 
round  which  their  white  roots  clung.  Miniature  pine- 
trees,  in  pots  of  brass,  thrust  their  boughs  between  the 
rusty  ironwork  of  old  balconies.  Through  an  open 
doorway  a  glimpse  was  given  down  a  dark  hallway, 
narrow,  black,  a  gas-jet,  like  a  tiny  golden  tear,  diffus 
ing  a  frightened  gleam  of  light.  From  some  dim 
angle  the  glow  of  a  blood-red  lantern  mottled  a  space 
of  leprous  wall.  On  a  tottering  balcony  a  woman's 
face,  rounded  like  a  child's,  crimson  lipped,  crowned 
with  peach  blossoms,  looked  down  from  shadows,  the 
light  of  a  lantern  catching  and  loosening  the  golden 
traceries  of  her  rich  robe,  the  trail  of  peach  blossoms 
against  her  cheek. 

The  ascent  was  long  and  steep,  and  they  walked 
slowly,  talking  in  a  desultory  fashion.  Mariposa  re 
counted  the  trivial  incidents  that  had  taken  place  in 
the  Garcia  house  during  her  companion's  absence.  As 
they  breasted  the  last  hill  the  light  grew  brighter,  for 
the  sunset  still  lingered  in  a  reluctant  glow. 

"Take  my  arm,"  said  Barren.  "You're  out  of 
breath." 

She  took  it,  and  they  began  slowly  to  mount  the  last 
steep  blocks.  She  glanced  up  at  him  to  smile  her 
thanks  for  his  support,  and  met  his  eyes,  looking  in 
tently  at  her.  The  red  light  strengthened  on  her  face 
as  they  ascended. 

"You've  the  strangest  eyes,"  he  said  suddenly.  "Do 
you  know  what  they're  the  color  of?" 

"My  father  used  to  say  they  were  like  a  dog's,"  she 


FRIEND   AND   BROTHER  317 

answered,  feeling  unable  to  drop  them  and  yet  uneasy 
under  his  unflinching  gaze. 

"They're  the  color  of  sherry — exactly  the  same." 

"I  won't  let  you  see  them  any  more  if  that's  the  best 
you  can  say  of  them,"  she  said,  dropping  them. 

"I  could  say  they  were  the  color  of  beer,"  he  an 
swered,  "but  I  thought  sherry  sounded  better." 

"Beer!"  she  exclaimed,  averting  not  only  her  eyes, 
but  her  face.  "That's  an  insult." 

"Well,  then,  I'll  only  say  in  the  simplest  way  what  I 
think.  I'm  not  the  kind  of  man  who  makes  fine 
speeches — they're  the  most  beautiful  eyes  in  the  world." 

"That's  the  worst  of  all,"  she  answered,  extremely 
confused  and  not  made  more  comfortable  by  the 
thought  that  she  had  brought  it  on  herself.  "Let's 
leave  my  eyes  out  of  the  question." 

"All  right,  I'll  not  speak  of  them  again.  But  I'll 
want  to  see  them  now  and  then." 

He  saw  her  color  mounting,  and  in  the  joy  of  her 
close  proximity,  loitering  arm  in  arm  up  the  sordid 
street,  he  laughed  again  in  his  happiness  and  said : 

"When  a  person  owns  something  that's  rare  and 
beautiful  he  oughtn't  to  be  mean  about  it." 

"I  suppose  not,"  said  the  owner  of  the  rare  and 
beautiful  possessions,  keeping  them  sternjly  out  of 
sight. 

He  continued  to  look  ardently  at  her,  not  conscious 
of  what  he  was  doing,  his  step  growing  slower  and 
slower. 

"It's  a  long  climb,"  he  said  at  length. 

"Yes,"  she  assented.  "Is  that  why  you're  going  so 
slowly?" 


3i8  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Are  we  going  so  slowly?"  he  asked,  and  as  if  to 
demonstrate  how  slow  had  been  their  progress,  they 
both  came  to  a  stop  like  a  piece  of  run-down  machinery. 

They  looked  at  each  other  for  a  questioning  moment, 
then  burst  into  simultaneous  peals  of  laughter. 

One  of  the  last  and  daintiest  charms  that  nature  can 
give  a  woman  is  a  lovely  laugh.  It  suggests  unex 
plored  riches  of  tenderness  and  sweetness,  unrevealed 
capacity  for  joy  and  pain,  as  a  harsh  and  unmusical 
laugh  tells  of  an  arid  nature,  hard,  without  juice,  de 
void  of  imagination,  mystery  and  passion.  Like  her 
mother  before  her,  Mariposa  possessed  this  charm  in 
its  highest  form.  The  ripple  of  sound  that  flowed 
from  her  lips  was  music,  and  it  cast  a  spell  over  the 
man  at  whose  side  she  stood,  as  Lucy's  laugh,  twenty- 
five  years  before,  had  cast  one  over  Dan  Moreau. 

"I  never  heard  you  laugh  before,"  he  said  in  de 
light.  "What  can  I  say  to  make  you  do  it  again?" 

"You  didn't  say  anything  that  time,"  said  Mariposa. 
"So  I  suppose  the  best  way  is  for  you  to  be  silent." 

Barren  took  her  advice  and  surveyed  her  mutely 
with  dancing  eyes.  For  a  moment  her  lips,  puckered 
into  a  tremulous  pout,  twitched  with  the  premonitory 
symptoms  of  a  second  outburst.  But  she  controlled 
them,  moved  by  some  perverse  instinct  of  coquetry, 
while  the  laughter  welled  up  in  the  eyes  that  were  fixed 
on  him. 

"I  see  I'll  have  to  make  a  joke,"  he  said,  "and  I 
can't  think  of  any." 

"Mrs.  Garcia's  got  a  book  full.  You  might  bor 
row  it." 


FRIEND   AND    BROTHER  319 

"Couldn't  you  tell  me  one  that's  made  you  laugh 
before  and  loan  it  to  me  ?" 

"But  it  mightn't  work  a  second  time.  I  might  take 
it  quite  solemnly.  A  sense  of  humor's  a  very  ca 
pricious  thing." 

"I  think  the  lady  who's  got  it  is  even  more  so,"  lie 
said. 

And  then  once  again  they  laughed  in  concert,  fool 
ishly  and  gaily  and  without  knowing  why. 

They  had  gained  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  the  blaze 
of  red  that  swept  across  the  west  shone  on  their  faces. 
They  were  within  a  few  minutes'  walk  of  the  house 
now  and  they  continued,  arm  in  arm,  as  was  the  cus 
tom  of  the  day,  and  at  the  same  loitering  gait. 

"Didn't  you  tell  me  your  people  came  originally 
from  Eldorado  County,  somewhere  up  near  Hang- 
town?"  he  asked.  "I've  just  been  up  that  way,  and 
if  I'd  known  the  place  I  might  have  stopped  there." 

"Oh,  you  never  could  have  found  it,"  said  Mari- 
posa  hastily.  "It  was  only  a  cabin  miles  back  in  the 
foothills.  My  mother  often  told  me  of  it — just  a  cabin 
by  a  stream.  It  has  probably  disappeared  now.  My 
father  and  mother  met  and  were  married  there  among 
the  mines,  and — and — I  was  born  there,"  she  ended, 
stammeringly,  hating  the  lies  upon  which  her  youthful 
traditions  had  been  built. 

"If  I'd  known  you  had  been  born  there  I'd  have  gone 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  find  that  cabin  if  it  had  taken  a 
month." 

"But  I  tell  you  it  can't  be  standing  yet.  I'm  twenty- 
four  years  old — "  she  suddenly  realized  that  this,  too, 


320  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

was  part  of  the  necessary  web  of  misstatement  in  which 
she  was  caught.  The  color  deepened  on  her  face  into 
a  conscious  blush.  She  dropped  her  eyes,  then  raising 
them  to  his  with  a  curious  defiance,  said : 

"No — that's  a  mistake.  I'm — I'm — more  than  that, 
I'm  twenty-five,  nearly  twenty-six." 

Barren,  who  saw  nothing  in  the  equivocation  but  a 
girl's  foolish  desire  to  understate  her  age,  burst  into 
delighted  laughter,  and  pressing  the  hand  on  his  arm 
against  his  side,  said : 

"Why,  I  always  thought  you  were  years  older  than 
that — thirty  to  thirty-five  at  least." 

And  he  looked  with  teasing  eyes  into  her  face.  But 
this  time  Mariposa  did  not  laugh,  nor  even  smile.  The 
joy  had  suddenly  gone  out  of  her,  and  she  walked  on 
in  silence,  her  head  drooped,  seeming  in  some  mysteri- 
ous^way  to  have  grown  suddenly  anxious  and  preoc 
cupied. 

"There's  the  house,"  she  said  at  length.  "I  was 
getting  tired." 

"There's  a  light  in  the  parlor,"  said  Barren,  as  he 
opened  the  gate.  "What  can  be  the  matter?  Has 
Benito  killed  grandma,  or  is  there  a  party?" 

Their  doubts  on  this  point  were  soon  set  at  rest. 
Their  approaching  footsteps  evidently  were  heard  by 
a  listening  ear  within,  for  the  hall  door  opened  and 
Benito  appeared  in  the  aperture. 

"There's  a  man  to  see  you  in  the  parlor,"  he  an 
nounced  to  Mariposa. 

Inside  the  hallway  the  door  on  the  left  that  led  to 
Mrs.  Garcia's  apartments  opened  and  the  young  woman 
thrust  out  her  head,  and  said  in  a  hissing  whisper : 


FRIEND    AND    BROTHER  321 

"There's  a  gentleman  waiting  for  you  in  the  parlor, 
Miss  Moreau." 

At  the  same  time  Miguel  imparted  similar  infor 
mation  from  the  top  of  the  stairs,  and  the  Chinaman 
appeared  at  the  kitchen  door  and  cried  from  thence, 
with  the  laconic  dryness  peculiar  to  his  race : 

"One  man  see  you,  parlor." 

Mariposa  stood  looking  from  one  to  the  other  with 
the  raised  eyebrows  of  inquiring  astonishment.  The 
only  person  who  had  visitors  in  the  Garcia  house  was 
Pierpont,  and  they  did  not  come  at  such  a  fashionably 
late  hour. 

"He's  a  thin,  consumpted-looking  young  man  with 
eye-glasses,"  said  Mrs.  Garcia,  curling  round  the  door 
the  better  to  project  the  hissing  whisper  she  em 
ployed,  "and  he  said  he'd  wait  till  you  came  in." 

Mariposa  turned  toward  the  parlor  door,  leavingr  the 
family,  with  Barren,  on  the  stairs,  and  the  Chinaman, 
peering  from  the  kitchen  regions,  watching  her  with 
tense  interest,  as  if  they  half  expected  they  would  never 
see  her  again. 

Two  of  the  gases  in  the  old  chandelier  were  lit  and 
cast  a  sickly  light  over  the  large  room,  which  had  the 
close,  musty  smell  of  an  unaired  apartment.  The  last 
relics  of  Senora  Garcia's  grandeur  were  congregated 
here — bronzes  that  once  had  cost  large  sums  of  money, 
a  gilt  console  that  had  been  brought  from  a  rifled 
French  chateau  round  the  Horn  in  a  sailing  ship,  a 
buhl  cabinet  with  its  delicate  silvery  inlaying  gleaming 
in  the  half-light,  and  two  huge  Japanese  vases,  with 
blue  and  white  dragons  crawling  round  their  necks, 
flanking  the  fireplace. 


322  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

On  the  edge  of  a  chair,  just  under  the  chandelier, 
sat  a  young  man.  He  had  his  hat  in  his  hand,  and 
his  head  drooped  so  that  the  light  fell  smoothly  on 
the  crown  of  blond  hair.  He  looked  small  and  meager 
in  the  surrounding  folds  of  a  very  large  and  loose 
ulster.  As  the  sound  of  the  approaching  step  caught 
his  ear  he  started  and  looked  up,  with  the  narrowed 
eyes  of  the  near-sighted,  and  then  jumped  to  his  feet. 

"Miss  Moreau?"  he  said  inquiringly,  and  extended 
a  long,  thin  hand  which,  closing  on  hers,  felt  to  her 
warm,  soft  grasp  like  a  bunch  of  chilled  sticks.  She 
had  not  the  slightest  idea  who  he  was,  and  looking  at 
him  under  the  wan  light,  saw  he  was  some  one  from 
that  world  of  wealth  with  which  she  had  so  few  affilia 
tions.  Something  about  him — the  coldness  of  his 
hand,  an  indescribable  trepidation  of  manner — sug- 
ges^ed  to  her  that  he  was  exceedingly  ill  at  ease.  She 
looked  at  him  wonderingly,  and  said  : 

"Won't  you  sit  down  ?" 

He  sat  at  her  bidding  on  the  chair  he  had  risen  from, 
subsiding  into  the  small,  shrunken  figure  in  the  middle 
of  enveloping  folds  of  overcoat.  One  hand  hung  down 
between  his  knees  holding  his  hat.  He  looked  at 
Mariposa  and  then  looked  down  at  the  hat. 

"Cold  afternoon,  isn't  it?"  he  said. 

"Very  cold,"  she  responded,  "but  I  like  it.  I  hope 
you  haven't  been  waiting  long." 

"Not  very,"  he  looked  up  at  her,  blinking  near-sight- 
edly  through  the  glasses ;  "I  don't  know  whether  you 
know  what  my  name  is,  Miss  Moreau  ?  It's  Shackle- 
ton — Winslow  Shackleton.  I  forgot  my  card." 

Mariposa   felt   a  lightning-like   change   come   over 


FRIEND    AND   BROTHER  323 

her  face,  in  which  there  was  a  sudden  stiffening  of 
her  features  into  something  hard  and  repellent.  To 
Win,  at  that  moment,  she  looked  very  like  his  father. 

"Oh !"  she  said,  hearing  her  voice  drop  at  the  end 
of  the  interjection  with  a  note  of  vague  disapproval 
and  uneasiness. 

"I've  seen  you,"  continued  Win,  "once  at  The 
Trumpet  office,  when  you  were  there  with  Mrs.  Willers. 
I  don't  think  you  saw  me.  I  was  back  in  the  corner, 
near  the  table  where  Jack — that's  the  boy — sits." 

Mariposa  murmured : 

"No,  I  didn't  see  you." 

She  hardly  knew  what  he  said  or  what  she  re 
sponded.  What  did  this  mean?  What  was  going  to 
happen  now  ? 

"You  must  excuse  my  coming  this  way,  without  an 
introduction  or  anything,  but  as  you  knew  my  father 
and  mother,  I — I — thought  you  wouldn't  mind." 

He  glanced  at  her  again,  anxiously,  she  thought, 
and  she  said  suddenly,  with  her  habitual  directness: 

"Did  you  come  from  your  mother  ?" 

"No,  I  came  on — on — my  own  hook.  I  wanted" — 
he  looked  vaguely  about  and  then  laid  his  hat  on  a 
table  near  him — "I  wanted  to  see  you  on  business  of 
my  own." 

The  nervousness  from  which  he  was  evidently  suf 
fering  began  to  communicate  itself  to  Mariposa.  The 
Shackleton  family  had  come  to  mean  everything  that 
was  painful  and  agitating  to  her,  and  here  was  a  new 
one  wanting  to  talk  to  her  about  business  that  she 
knew,  past  a  doubt,  was  of  some  unusual  character. 

"If  you've  come  to  talk  to  me  about  going  to  Eu- 


324  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

rope,"  she  said  desperately,  "I  may  as  well  tell  you, 
there's  no  use.  I  won't  go  to  Paris  now,  as  I  once 
said  I  would,  and  there's  no  good  trying  to  make  me 
change  my  mind.  Your  mother  and  Mrs.  Willers 
have  both  tried  to,  and  it's  very  kind  of  them,  but  I — 
can't." 

She  had  an  expression  at  once  of  fright  and  deter 
mination.  The  subject  was  becoming  a  nightmare  to 
her,  and  she  saw  herself  attacked  again  from  a  strange 
quarter,  and  with,  she  imagined,  a  new  set  of  argu 
ments. 

"It's  nothing  to  do  with  going  to  Europe,"  he  said. 
"It's — it's" — he  put  up  one  of  the  long,  bony  hands, 
and  with  the  two  first  fingers  pressed  his  glasses  back 
against  his  eyes,  then  dropped  the  hand  and  stared  at 
Mariposa,  the  eyes  looking  strangely  pale  and  promi 
nent  behind  the  powerful  lenses. 

"It's  something  that's  just  between  you  and  me,"  he 
said. 

She  surveyed  him  without  answering,  her  brows 
drawn,  her  mind  concentrated  on  him  and  on  what  he 
could  mean. 

"Do  you  want  me  to  teach  somebody  music?"  she 
said,  wondering  if  this  could  be  the  pleasant  solution 
of  the  enigma. 

"No.  The — er — the  business  I've  come  to  talk  to 
you  about  ought  to  do  away  altogether  with  the  neces 
sity  of  your  giving  lessons." 

They  looked  at  each  other  silently  for  a  moment. 
Win  was  conscious  that  his  hands  were  trembling,  and 
that  his  mouth  was  dry.  He  rose  from  his  chair  and 
mechanically  reached  for  his  hat.  When  he  had  started 


FRIEND   AND    BROTHER  325 

on  his  difficult  errand  he  had  been  certain  that  she 
knew  her  relationship  to  his  father.  Now  the  dreadful 
thought  entered  his  mind  that  perhaps  she  did  not. 
And  even  if  she  did,  it  was  evident  that  she  was  not 
going-  to  give  him  the  least  help. 

"What  is  the  business  you've  come  to  see  me  about  ?" 
she  asked. 

"It's  a  question  of  money,"  he  answered. 

"Money!"  ejaculated  Mariposa,  in  baffled  amaze. 
"What  money?  Why?" 

He  glanced  desperately  into  his  hat  and  then  back 
at  her.  She  saw  the  hat  trembling  in  his  hand 
and  suddenly  realized  that  this  man  was  trying  to  say 
something  that  was  agitating  him  to  the  marrow  of 
his  being. 

"Mr.  Shackleton,"  she  said,  rising  to  her  feet,  "tell 
me  what  you  mean.  I  don't  understand.  I'm  com 
pletely  at  sea.  How  can  there  be  any  question  of 
money  between  us  when  I've  never  seen  you  or  met 
you  before  ?  Explain  it  all." 

He  dropped  the  hat  to  his  side  and  said  slowly,  look 
ing  her  straight  in  the  face : 

"I  want  to  give  you  a  share  of  the  estate  left  me  by 
my  father.  I  look  upon  it  as  yours." 

There  was  a  pause.  He  saw  her  paling  under  his 
gaze,  and  realized  that,  whatever  she  might  pretend, 
she  knew.  His  heart  bled  for  her. 

"As  mine!"  she  said  in  a  low,  uncertain  voice. 
"Why?" 

"Because  you  have  a  right  to  it." 

There  was  another  pause.  He  moved  close  to  her 
and  said,  in  a  voice  full  of  a  man's  deep  kindness : 


326  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"I  can't  explain  any  more.  Don't  ask  it.  Don't 
let's  bother  about  anything  in  the  background.  It's 
just  the  present  that's  our  affair." 

He  suddenly  dropped  his  hat  and  took  her  hand. 
It  was  as  cold  now  as  his  had  been.  He  pressed  it, 
and  Mariposa,  looking  dazedly  at  him,  saw  a  gleam 
like  tears  behind  the  glasses. 

"It's  hateful  to  have  you  living  here  like  this,  while 
we — that  is,  while  other  people — have  everything.  I 
can't  stand  it.  It's  too  mean  and  unfair.  I  want  you 
to  share  with  me." 

She  shook  her  head,  looking  down,  a  hundred 
thoughts  bursting  in  upon  her  brain.  What  did  he 
know?  How  had  he  found  it  out?  In  his  grasp,  her 
hand  trembled  pitifully. 

"Don't  shake  your  head,"  he  pleaded,  "it's  so  hard  to 
say  it.  Don't  turn  it  down  before  you've  heard  me  out." 

"And  it's  hard  to  hear  it,"  she  murmured. 

"No  one  knows  anything  of  this  but  me,"  he  con 
tinued,  "and  I  promise  you  that  no  other  ever  shall. 
It'll  be  just  between  us  as  between" — he  paused  and 
then  added  with  a  voice  that  was  husky — "as  between 
brother  and  sister." 

She  shook  her  head  again,  feeling  for  the  moment 
too  upset  to  speak,  and  tried  to  draw  away  from  him. 
But  he  put  his  other  hand  on  her  shoulder  and  held 
her. 

"I'll  go  halves  with  you.  I  can  have  it  all  arranged 
so  that  no  one  will  ever  find  out.  I  can't  make  the 
regular  partition  of  the  property  until  the  end  of  the 
year.  But,  until  then,  I'll  send  you  what  would  be 
your  interest,  monthly,  and  you  can  live  where,  or 


FRIEND   AND   BROTHER  327 

how,  you  like.  I — I — can't  go  on,  knowing  things,  and 
thinking  of  you  living  in  this  sort  of  way  and  teaching 
music." 

"I  can't  do  it,"  she  said,  in  a  strangled  undertone, 
and  pulling  her  hand  out  of  his  grasp.  "I  can't.  It's 
not  possible.  I  can't  take  money  that  was  your 
father's." 

"But  it's  not  his — it's  mine  now.  Don't  let  what's 
dead  and  buried  come  up  and  interfere." 

She  backed  away  from  him,  still  shaking  her  head. 
She  made  an  effort  toward  a  cold  composure,  but  her 
pain  seemed  to  show  more  clearly  through  it.  He 
looked  at  her,  vexed,  irresolute,  wrung  with  pity,  that 
he  knew  she  would  not  permit  him  to  express. 

It  was  impossible  for  them  to  understand  each  other. 
She,  with  her  secret  knowledge  of  her  mother's  lawful 
claim  and  her  own  legitimacy — he  regarding  her  as  the 
wronged  child  of  his  father's  sin.  In  her  dazed  dis 
tress  she  only  half-grasped  what  he  thought.  The 
strongest  feeling  she  had  was  once  again  to  escape 
the  toils  that  these  terrible  people,  who  had  so  wronged 
her  mother,  were  spreading  for  her.  They  wanted 
to  pay  her  to  redeem  the  stain  on  their  past. 

"Money  can't  set  right  what  was  wrong,"  she  said. 
"Money  can't  square  things  between  your  family  and 
mine." 

"Money  can't  square  anything — I  don't  want  it  to. 
I'm  not  trying  to  square  things  ;  I've  not  thought  about 
it  that  way  at  all.  I  just  wanted  you  to  have  it  because 
it  seemed  all  wrong  for  you  not  to.  You  had  a  right, 
just  as  I  had,  and  Maud  had.  I  don't  think  I've 
thought  much  about  it,  anyway.  It  just  came  to  me 


328  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

that  you  ought  to  have  what  was  yours.  I  wouldn't 
make  you  feel  bad  for  the  world." 

"Then  remember,  once  and  forever,  that  I  take  noth 
ing-  from  you  or  your  people.  I'd  rather  beg  than  take 
money  that  came  from  your  father." 

"But  he  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  It's  mine  now. 
I've  done  you  no  injury,  and  it's  1  that  want  you  to 
take  it.  Won't  you  take  it  from  me?" 

He  spoke  simply,  almost  wistfully,  like  a  little  boy. 
Mariposa  answered : 

"No — oh,  Mr.  Shackleton,  why  don't  you  and  your 
people  let  me  alone?  I  won't  tell.  I'll  keep  it  all  a 
secret.  But  your  mother  torments  me  to  go  to  Europe 
— and  now  you  come!  If  I  were  starving,  I  wouldn't 
— I  couldn't — take  anything  from  any  of  you.  I  think 
you're  kind.  I  think  you've  just  come  to-day  because 
you  were  sorry.  But  don't  talk  about  it  any  more.  Let 
me  be.  Let  me  go  along  teaching  here  where  I  belong. 
Forget  me.  Forget  that  you  ever  saw  me.  Forget  the 
miserable  tie  of  blood  there  is  between  us." 

"That's  the  thing  I  can't  forget.  That's  the  thing 
that  worries  me.  It's  not  the  past.  I've  nothing  to 
do  with  that.  It's  the  present  that's  my  affair.  I  can't 
have  everything  while  you  have  nothing.  It  don't  seem 
to  me  it's  like  a  man  to  act  that  way.  It  goes  against 
me,  anyhow.  I  don't  offer  you  this  because  of  any 
thing  in  the  past;  that's  my  father's  affair.  I  don't 
know  anything  about  it.  I  offer  it  because  I — I — I" — 
he  stammered  over  the  unfamiliar  words  and  finally 
jerked  out — "because  I  want  to  give  back  what  belongs 
to  you.  That's  all  there  is  to  it.  Please  take  it." 

She  looked  directly  into  his  eyes  and  said,  gravely : 


FRIEND   AND    BROTHER  329 

"No.  I'm  sorry  if  it's  a  disappointment,  but  I  can't." 

Then  she  suddenly  looked  down,  her  face  began  to 
quiver,  and  she  said  in  a  broken  undertone : 

"Don't  talk  about  it  any  more ;  it  hurts  me  so." 

Win  turned  quickly  away  from  her  and  picked  up 
his  hat.  He  was  confused  and  disappointed,  and  re 
lieved,  too,  for  he  had  done  the  most  difficult  piece  of 
work  of  his  life.  But,  at  the  moment,  his  most  engross 
ing  feeling  was  sympathy  for  this  girl,  so  bravely 
drawing  her  pride  together  over  the  bleeding  of  her 
heart. 

She  murmured  a  response  in  a  steadier  voice  and 
he  turned  toward  her.  Had  any  of  his  society  friends 
been  by  they  would  hardly  have  known  him.  The 
foolish  manner  behind  which  he  sheltered  his  shy  and 
sensitive  nature  was  gone.  He  was  grave  and  looked 
very  much  of  a  man. 

"Well,  of  course,  it's  for  you  to  say  what  you  want. 
But  there's  one  thing  I'd  like  you  to  promise." 

"To  promise?"  she  said  uneasily. 

"Yes,  and  to  keep  it,  too.  And  that  is,  if  you  ever 
want  anything — help  in  any  way;  if  you  get  blue 
in  your  spirits,  or  some  one's  not  doing  the  straight 
thing  by  you,  or  gone  back  on  you — to  come  to  me. 
I'm  not  much  in  some  ways,  but  I  guess  I  could  be  of 
use.  And,  anyway,  it's  good  for  a  girl  to  have  some 
friend  that  she  can  count  on,  who's  a  man.  And" — he 
paused  with  the  door-handle  in  his  hand — "and  now 
you  know  me,  anyway,  and  that's  something.  Will 
you  promise?" 

"Yes,  I'll  promise  that,"  said  Mariposa,  and  moving 
toward  him  she  gave  him  her  hand, 


330  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

He  pressed  it,  dropped  it,  and  opened  the  door.  A 
moment  later  Mariposa  heard  the  hall  door  bang  be 
hind  him.  She  sat  down  in  the  chair  from  which  she 
had  risen,  her  hands  lying  idle  in  her  lap,  her  eyes  on 
a  rose  in  the  carpet,  trying  to  think,  to  understand 
what  it  meant. 

She  did  not  hear  the  door  open  or  notice  Benrto's 
entrance,  which  was  accomplished  with  some  disturb 
ance,  as  he  was  astride  a  cane.  His  spirited  course 
round  the  room,  the  end  of  the  cane  coming  in  violent 
contact  with  the  pieces  of  furniture  that  impeded  his 
route,  was  of  so  boisterous  a  nature  that  it  roused  her. 
She  looked  absently  at  him,  and  saw  him  wreathed  in 
smiles.  Having  gained  her  attention,  he  brought  his 
steed  toward  her  with  some  ornamental  prancings.  She 
noticed  that  he  held  a  pair  of  gloves  in  his  hands. 

"That  man  what  came  to  see  you,"  he  said,  "left  this 
cane.  It  was  in  the  hat-rack,  and  I  came  out  first,  so  I 
swiped  it.  I  took  these  for  Miguel" — he  flourished 
the  gloves — "but  the  cane's  mine  all  right.  Come  in 
to  supper." 

And  he  wheeled  away  with  a  bridling  step,  the  end 
of  his  cane  rasping  on  the  worn  ribs  of  the  carpet. 
Mariposa,  mechanically  following  him,  heard  his  tri 
umphant  cries  as  he  entered  the  dining-room  and  then 
his  sudden  wails  of  wrath  as  Miguel  expressed  his  dis 
approbation  of  the  division  of  the  spoils  in  the  vigorous 
manner  of  innocent  childhood. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

WITH    ME  TO   HELP 

"Look  in  my  face,  my  name  is — Might  Have  Been ! 
I  am  also  called,  No  More,  Too  Late,  Farewell." 

— ROSETTI. 

Had  Essex  realized  that  Mrs.  Willers  was  an  ad 
verse  agent  in  his  suit  of  Mariposa,  he  would  not 
have  greeted  her  with  the  urbane  courteousness  that 
marked  their  meetings.  He  was  a  man  of  many 
manners,  and  he  never  would  have  wasted  one  of  his 
best  on  the  newspaper  woman,  to  him  essentially  un 
interesting  and  unattractive,  unless  he  had  intended 
thereby  to  further  his  own  ends.  Mrs.  Willers  he 
knew  to  be  a  friend  of  Mariposa's,  and  he  thought  it 
a  wise  policy  to  keep  in  her  good  graces.  He  made 
that  mistake,  so  often  the  undoing  of  those  who  are 
unscrupulous  and  clever,  of  not  crediting  Mrs.  Wil 
lers  with  her  full  amount  of  brains.  He  had  seen 
her  foolish  side,  and  he  knew  that  she  was  a  good 
journalist  of  the  hustling,  energetic,  unintellectual 
type,  but  he  saw  no  deeper. 

Since  their  meeting  in  the  park  and  her  unequivocal 
rejection  of  him  his  feeling  for  Mariposa  had  aug 
mented  in  force  and  fire  until  it  had  full  possession  of 
him.  He  was  of  the  order  of  men  whom  easy  con- 

331 


332  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

quests  cool.  Now  added  to  the  girl's  own  change  of 
front  was  the  overwhelming  inducement  of  the 
wealth  she  represented.  His  original  idea  of  Mari- 
posa  as  a  handsome  mistress  that  he  would  take  to 
France  and  there  put  on  the  operatic  stage,  of  whom 
he  would  be  the  proud  owner,  while  they  toured 
Europe  together,  her  voice  and  beauty  charming 
kings,  had  been  abandoned  since  the  night  of  his  talk 
with  Harney.  He  would  marry  her,  and,  with  her 
completely  under  his  dominion,  he  would  turn  upon 
the  Shackleton  estate  and  make  her  claim.  He  sup 
posed  her  to  be  in  entire  ignorance  of  her  parentage, 
and  his  first  idea  had  been  to  marry  her  and  not  lighten 
this  ignorance  till  she  was  safely  in  his  power.  He 
had  a  fear  of  her  shrinking  before  the  hazards  of  the 
enterprise,  but  he  was  confident  that,  once  his,  all 
scruples,  timidity  and  will  would  give  way  before  him. 

But  her  refusal  of  him  had  upset  these  calculations, 
and  her  coldness  and  repugnance  had  been  as  oil  to  the 
flame  of  his  passion.  He  was  enraged  with  himselt 
and  with  her.  He  thought  of  the  night  in  the  cottage 
and  cursed  himself  for  his  precipitation,  and  his  gods 
for  the  ill  luck  that,  too  late,  had  revealed  to  him  her 
relationship  to  the  dead  millionaire.  At  first  he  had 
thought  the  offer  of  marriage  would  obliterate  all  un 
pleasant  memories.  But  her  manner  that  day  in  the 
park  had  frightened  him.  It  was  not  the  haughty 
manner,  adopted  to  conceal  hidden  fires,  of  the  woman 
who  still  loves.  There  had  been  a  chill  poise  about 
her  that  suggested  complete  withdrawal  from  his  in 
fluence. 

Since   then  he  had   cogitated   much.     He   foresaw 


WITH    ME   TO    HELP  333 

that  it  was  going  to  be  very  difficult  to  see  and  have 
speech  of  her.  An  occasional  walk  up  Third  Street 
to  Sutter  with  Mrs.  Willers  kept  him  informed  of. 
her  movements  and  doings.  Had  he  guessed  that 
Mrs.  Willers,  with  her  rouge  higher  up  on  one  cheek 
than  the  other,  the  black  curls  of  her  bang  sprawlingly 
pressed  against  her  brow  by  a  spotted  veil,  was  quite 
conversant  with  his  pretensions  and  their  non-success, 
he  would  have  been  more  guarded  in  his  exhibition  of 
interest.  As  it  was,  Mrs.  Willers  wrote  to  Mariposa 
after  one  of  these  walks  in  which  Essex's  questions 
had  been  carelessly  numerous  and  frank,  and  told  her 
that  he  was  still  "camped  on  her  trail,  and  for  good 
ness'  sake  not  to  weaken."  Mariposa  tore  up  the  let 
ter  with  an  angry  ejaculation. 

"Not  to  weaken !"  she  said  to  herself.  If  she  had 
only  dared  to  tell  Mrs.  Willers  the  whole  instead  of 
half  the  truth ! 

The  difficulty  of  seeing  Mariposa  was  further  in 
tensified  by  the  fullness  of  his  own  days.  He  had  lit 
tle  time  to  spare.  The  new  proprietor  worked  his 
people  for  all  there  was  in  them  and  paid  them  well. 
Several  times  on  the  regular  weekl>  holiday  the  su 
perior  men  on  The  Trumpet  were  given,  he  loitered 
along  streets  where  she  had  been  wont  to  pass.  But 
he  never  saw  her.  The  chance  that  had  favored  him 
that  once  in  the  park  was  not  repeated.  Mrs.  Willers 
said  she  was  very  busy.  Essex  began  to  wonder  if 
she  suspected  him  of  lying  in  wait  for  her  and  was 
taking  her  walks  along  unfrequented  byways. 

Finally,  after  Christmas  had  passed  and  he  had 
still  not  caught  a  glimpse  of  her,  he  determined  to  see 


334  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

her  in  the  only  way  that  seemed  possible.  He  had 
inherited  certain  traditions  of  good  breeding  from 
his  mother,  and  it  offended  this  streak  of  delicacy 
and  decency  that  was  still  faintly  discernible  in  his 
character  to  intrude  upon  a  lady  who  had  so  obviously 
shown  a  distaste  for  his  society.  But  there  was  noth 
ing  else  for  it.  Interests  that  were  vital  were  at 
stake.  Moreover,  his  desire,  for  love's  sake,  to  see 
her  again  was  overmastering.  Her  face  came  be 
tween  him  and  his  work.  There  were  nights  when  he 
stood  opposite  the  Garcia  house  watching  for  her 
shadow  on  the  blind. 

He  timed  his  visit  at  an  hour  when,  according  to  the 
information  extracted  from  Mrs.  Willers,  Mariposa's 
last  pupil  for  the  day  should  have  left.  He  loitered 
about  at  the  corner  of  the  street  and  saw  the  pupil — one 
of  the  grown-up  ones  in  a  sealskin  sack  and  a  black 
Gainsborough  hat — open  the  gate  and  sweep  ma 
jestically  down  the  street.  Then  he  strode  from  his 
coign  of  vantage,  stepped  lightly  up  the  stairs,  and 
rang  the  bell. 

It  was  after  school  hours,  and  Benito  opened  the 
door.  Essex,  in  his  silk  hat  and  long,  dark  overcoat, 
tall  and  distinguished,  was  so  much  more  impressive 
a  figure  than  Win  that  the  little  boy  stared  at  him 
in  overawed  surprise,  and  only  found  his  breath  when 
the  stranger  demanded  Miss  Moreau. 

"Yes,  she's  in,"  said  Benito,  backing  away  toward 
the  stairs ;  "I'll  call  her.  She  has  quite  a  lot  of  callers 
sometimes,"  he  hazarded  pleasantly. 

The  door  near  by  opened  a  crack,  and  a  female 


WITH    ME   TO    HELP  335 

voice  issued  therefrom  in  a  suppressed  tone  of  irrita 
tion. 

"Benito,  why  don't  you  show  the  gentleman  into 
the  parlor?" 

"He'll  go  in  if  he  wants,"  said  Benito,  who  evident 
ly  had  decided  that  the  stranger  knew  how  to  take 
care  of  himself;  "that's  the  door;  just  open  it  and  go 
in." 

Essex,  who  was  conscious  that  the  eye  which  per 
tained  to  the  voice  was  surveying  him  intently  through 
the  crack,  did  as  he  was  bidden  and  found  himself  in 
the  close,  musty  parlor.  It  was  late  in  the  afternoon, 
and  the  long  lace  curtains  draped  over  the  windows 
obscured  the  light.  He  wanted  to  see  Mariposa 
plainly  and  he  looped  the  curtains  back  against  the 
brass  hooks.  His  heart  was  beating  hard  with  ex 
pectation.  As  he  turned  round  to  look  at  the  door 
he  noticed  that  the  key  was  in  the  lock,  and  resolved, 
with  a  sense  of  grim  determination,  that  if  she  tried 
to  go  when  she  saw  who  it  was,  he  could  be  before 
her  and  turn  the  key. 

Upstairs  Benito  had  found  Mariposa  sitting  in  front 
of  the  fire.  She  had  been  giving  lessons  most  of  the 
day  and  was  tired.  She  stretched  herself  like  a 
sleepy  cat  as  he  came  in,  and  put  her  hand  up  to  her 
hair,  pushing  in  the  loosened  hairpins. 

"It's  some  one  about  lessons,  I  guess,"  she  said, 
rising  and  giving  a  hasty  look  in  the  glass.  "At  this 
rate,  Ben,  I'll  soon  be  rich." 

"What'll  we  do  then?"  said  Benito,  clattering  to 
the  stairhead  beside  her. 


336  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

"We'll  buy  a  steam  yacht,  just  you  and  I,  and 
travel  round  the  world.  And  we'll  stop  in  all  sorts  of 
strange  countries  and  ride  on  elephants  and  buy  par 
rots,  and  shoot  tigers  and  go  up  in  balloons  and  do 
everything  that's  dangerous  and  interesting." 

She  was  in  good  spirits  at  the  prospect  of  a  new 
pupil,  and,  with  her  hand  on  the  door-knob,  threw 
Benito  a  farewell  smile,  which  was  still  on  her  lips  as 
she  entered. 

It  remained  there  for  a  moment,  for  at  the  first 
glance  she  did  not  recognize  Essex,  who  was  stand 
ing  with  his  back  to  the  panes  of  the  unveiled  win 
dows  ;  then  he  moved  toward  her  and  she  saw  who 
it  was. 

She  gave  a  smothered  exclamation  and  drew  back. 

"Mr.  Essex !"  she  said ;  "why  do  you  come  here  ?" 

He  had  intended  to  meet  her  with  his  customary 
half  impudent,  half  cajoling  suavity,  but  found  that 
he  could  not.  The  sight  of  her  filled  him  with  fiery 
agitation. 

"I  came  because  I  couldn't  keep  away,"  he  said, 
advancing  with  his  hand  out. 

"No,"  she  said,  glancing  at  the  hand  and  turning 
her  head  aside  with  an  impatient  movement ;  "there 
can't  be  any  pretenses  at  friendship  between  us.  I 
don't  want  to  shake  hands  with  you.  I  don't  want 
to  see  you.  What  did  you  come  for?" 

"To  see  you.     I  had  to  see  you." 

His  eyes,  fixed  on  her  as  she  stood  in  the  light  of 
the  window,  seemed  to  italicize  the  words  of  the  sen 
tence. 

"There's  no  use  beginning  that  subject  again,"  she 


WITH    ME   TO    HELP  337 

said  hurriedly;  "there's  no  use  talking  about  those 
things." 

*'What  things?     What  are  you  referring  to?" 

For  a  moment  she  felt  the  old  helpless  feeling  com 
ing  over  her,  but  she  forced  it  aside  and  said,  looking 
steadily  at  him : 

"The  things  we  talked  about  in  the  park  the  last 
time  we  met." 

She  saw  his  dark  face  flush.  He  was  too  much  in 
earnest  now  to  be  able  to  assert  his  supremacy  by 
teasing  equivocations. 

"Nevertheless,  I've  come  to-day  to  repeat  those 
things." 

"Don't — don't,"  she  said  quickly;  "there's  no  use. 
I  won't  listen  to  them.  It's  not  polite  to  intrude  into 
a  lady's  house  and  try  to  talk  about  subjects  she  de 
tests." 

"The  time  has  passed  for  us  to  be  polite  or  impolite," 
he  answered  hotly ;  "we're  not  the  man  and  woman 
as  society  and  the  world  has  made  them.  We're  the 
man  and  woman  as  they  are  and  have  always  been 
from  the  beginning.  We're  not  speaking  to  each 
other  through  the  veils  of  conventionality;  we're 
speaking  face  to.  face.  We  have  hearts  and  souls  and 
passions.  We've  loved  each  other." 

"Never,"  she  said ;  "never  for  a  moment." 

"You  have  a  bad  memory,"  he  answered  slowly ; 
"is  it  natural  or  cultivated?" 

He  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  her  color  rise. 
The  sight  sent  a  thrill  of  hope  through  him.  He 
moved  nearer  to  her  and  said  in  a  voice  that  vibrated 
with  feeling: 


338  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"You  loved  me  once." 

"No,  never,  never.    It  was  never  that." 

"Then  why,"  he  answered,  his  lips  trying  to  twist 
themselves  into  a  sardonic  smile,  while  rage  possessed 
him,  "why  did  you — let  us  say — encourage  me  so 
that  night  in  the  cottage  on  Pine  Street  ?" 

Though  her  color  burned  deeper,  her  eyes  did  not 
drop.  He  had  never  seen  her  dominating  her  own 
girlish  impulses  like  this.  It  seemed  to  remove  her 
thousands  of  miles  from  the  circle  of  his  power. 

"I'll  tell  you,"  she  answered;  "I  was  lonely  and 
miserable,  and  you  seemed  the  only  creature  that  I 
had  to  care  for.  I  thought  you  were  fond  of  me,  and 
I  thought  it  was  wonderful  that  any  one  as  clever  as 
you  could  really  care  for  me.  That  you  regarded  me 
as  you  did  I  could  no  more  have  imagined  than  I 
could  have  suspected  you  of  picking  my  pocket  or 
murdering  me.  And  that  night  in  the  cottage,  when 
in  my  loneliness  and  distress  I  seemed  to  be  holding 
out  my  arms  to  you,  asking  you  to  protect  and  com 
fort  me,  you  laughed  at  me  and  struck  me  a  blow  in 
the  face.  It  was  the  end  of  my  dream.  I  wakened 
then  and  saw  the  reality.  But  you — you  as  you  are — 
as  I  know  you  now — I  never  loved,  I  never  could  have 
loved." 

Her  words  inflamed  his  rage,  not  alone  against  her, 
but  against  himself,  who  had  had  her  in  this  pliant 
mood  in  his  very  arms  and  had  lost  her. 

"And  was  it  only  a  desire  for  consolation  and  sym 
pathy  that  made  you  behave  toward  me  in  what  was 
hardly — a — "  he  paused  as  if  hesitating  for  a  word 
that  would  in  a  seemly  manner  express  his  thought, 


WITH    ME   TO    HELP  339 

in  reality  racking  his  brains  for  the  one  that  would 
hurt  her  most — "hardly  a  maidenly  way  considering 
your  lack  of  interest  in  me  ?" 

The  word  he  had  chosen  told.  Her  color  sank  sud 
denly  away,  leaving  her  very  pale.  Her  face  seemed 
to  stiffen  and  lose  its  youthful  curves. 

"I  don't  think,"  she  said  slowly,  "that  it's  necessary 
to  continue  this  conversation.  It  doesn't  seem  to  me 
to  be  very  profitable  to  anybody." 

She  looked  at  him,  but  he  made  no  movement. 

"You  will  have  to  excuse  me,  Mr.  Essex,"  she  said, 
moving  toward  the  door,  "but  if  you  won't  go  I 
must." 

The  expected  had  happened.  He  sprang  before  her 
and  locked  the  door.  Leaning  his  back  against  it,  he 
stared  at  her.  Both  were  now  very  pale. 

"No,"  he  said,  hearing  his  own  voice  shaken  by  his 
rapid  breathing,  "you're  not  going.  I've  not  said 
half  I  came  to  say.  I've  not  come  to-day  to  plead 
and  sue  like  a  beggar  for  the  love  that  you're  ready 
to  give  one  day  and  take  back  the  next.  I've  other 
things  to  talk  about." 

"Open  the  door,"  she  commanded;  "open  the  door 
and  let  me  out.  I  want  to  hear  nothing  that  you  have 
to  say." 

"Don't  you  want  to  hear  who  you  are  ?"  he  asked. 

The  words  passed  through  Mariposa  like  a  current 
of  electricity.  Every  nerve  in  her  body  seemed  to 
tighten.  She  looked  at  him,  staring  and  repeating : 

"Hear  who  I  am?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  leaning  toward  her  while  one  hand 
still  gripped  the  door-handle;  "hear  what  your  real 


340  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

name  is,  and  who  you  are?  Hear  who  your  father 
was  and  where  you  were  born?" 

Her  face  blanched  under  his  eyes.  The  sight 
pleased  him,  suggesting  as  it  did  weakness  and  fear 
that  would  give  him  back  his  old  ascendancy.  Horror 
invaded  her.  He,  of  all  people  on  earth,  to  know !  She 
could  say  nothing ;  could  hardly  think ;  only  seemed 
a  thing  of  ears  to  hear. 

"Hear  who  my  father  was !"  she  repeated,  this  time 
almost  in  a  whisper. 

"Yes ;  I  can  tell  you  all  that,  and  more,  too.  I've 
got  a  wonderfully  interesting  story  for  you.  You'll 
not  want  to  go  when  I  begin.  Sit  down." 

"What  do  you  know  ?     Tell  me  quickly." 

"Don't  be  impatient.  It's  a  long  story.  It  begins 
on  the  Nevada  desert.  That's  where  you  were  born ; 
not  in  the  cabin  in  Eldorado  County,  as  I  heard  you 
telling  Jake  Shackleton  that  day  at  Mrs.  Willers'." 

He  was  watching  her  like  a  tiger,  still  standing 
with  his  back  against  the  door.  Her  eyes  were  on 
him,  wild  and  intent.  Each  word  fell  like  a  drop  of 
vitriol  on  her  brain.  She  saw  that  he  knew  every 
thing. 

"Your  mother  was  Lucy  Eraser,  but  your  father 
was  not  Dan  Moreau.  He  was  a  very  different  man, 
and  you  were  his  eldest  child,  his  eldest  and  only 
legitimate  child.  Do  you  know  what  his  name  was?" 

"Yes,"  said  Mariposa  in  a  low  voice ;  "Jake  Shackle- 
ton." 

It  was  Essex's  turn  to  be  amazed.  He  stared  at 
her,  speechless,  completely  staggered. 


"DON'T  YOU   WANT  TO  HEAR  WHO  YOU  ARE?' 


WITH    ME    TO    HELP  341 

"You  know  it?"  he  cried,  starting  forward  toward 
her;  "you  know  it?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered ;  "I  know  it." 

He  stood  glaring,  trying  to  collect  his  senses  and 
grasp  in  one  whirling  moment  what  difference  her 
knowledge  would  make  to  him. 

"How — how — did  you  know  it?"  he  stammered. 

"That's  not  of  any  consequence.  I  know  that  I  am 
Jake  Shackleton's  eldest  living  child ;  that  my  mother 
was  married  twice;  that  I  was  born  in  the  desert  in 
stead  of  in  Eldorado  County.  I  know  it  all.  And  what 
is  there  so  odd  about  that?"  She  threw  her  head  up 
and  looked  with  baffling  coldness  into  his  eyes.  "Why 
shouldn't  I  know  my  own  parentage  and  birthplace?" 

"And — and — "  he  continued  to  speak  with  eager 
unsteadiness — "you've  done  nothing  yet?" 

"Done  nothing  yet,"  she  repeated;  "what  should  I 
do?" 

"That's  all  right,"  he  said  hastily,  evidently  re 
lieved  ;  "you  couldn't  do  anything  alone.  There  must 
be  some  one  to  help  you." 

"Help  me  do  what?" 

Both  had  forgotten  the  quarrel,  the  locked  door, 
the  fever  pitch  of  ten  minutes  earlier.  All  other 
thoughts  had  been  crowded  out  of  Mariposa's  mind 
by  the  horrible  discovery  of  Essex's  knowledge,  and 
by  the  apprehensions  that  were  cold  in  her  heart. 
She  shrank  from  him  more  than  ever,  but  had  no  de 
sire  now  to  leave  the  room.  Instead,  she  persisted  in 
her  remark: 

"Help  me  do  what?    I  don't  know  what  you  mean." 


342  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Help  you  in  establishing  your  claim.  And  fate 
has  put  into  my  hands  the  very  person,  the  one  per 
son  who  can  do  that.  You  know  there  was  a  man 
who  was  in  the  cabin  with  Moreau — a  partner.  Did 
you  ever  hear  of  him  ?" 

She  nodded,  swallowing  dryly.  Her  sense  of  ap 
prehension  strengthened  with  his  every  word. 

"Well,  I  have  that  man  under  my  hand.  He  and 
Mrs.  Shackleton  are  the  only  living  witnesses  of  the 
transaction  whereby  your  mother  and  you  passed  into 
Moreau's  keeping.  And  I  have  him.  I've  got  him 
here."  He  made  a  gesture  with  his  thumb  as  though 
pressing  the  ball  of  it  down  on  something.  Then  he 
looked  at  Mariposa  with  eyes  full  of  an  eager  cupidity. 

She  did  not  respond  with  the  show  of  interest  he 
had  expected,  but  stood  looking  down,  pale  and  mo 
tionless.  Her  brain  was  in  an  appalled  chaos  from 
which  stood  out  only  a  few  facts.  This  terrible  man 
knew  her  secret — the  secret  of  her  mother's  life  and 
honor — that  she  would  have  died  to  hide  in  the  sa- 
credness  of  her  love  for  the  dead  man  and  woman 
who  could  no  longer  defend  themselves. 

"It  seems  as  if  fate  had  sent  me  to  help  you,"  he 
went  on ;  "you  couldn't  do  it  alone." 

"Do  what?"  she  asked  without  moving. 

"Establish  your  claim  as  the  real  heir.  Of  course 
you're  the  chief  heir.  I've  been  looking  it  up.  The 
others  will  get  a  share  as  acknowledged  children. 
But  you  ought  to  get  the  bulk  of  the  fortune  as  the 
only  legitimate  child." 

"Establish  my  claim?"  she  repeated.  "Do  you 
mean,  prove  that  I'm  Jake  Shackleton's  daughter?" 


WITH   ME   TO   HELP  343 

"Yes.  And  there's  a  tremendously  important  point. 
Did  your  mother  have  papers  or  letters  showing  that 
she  had  been  Shackleton's  wife?" 

"She  left  her  marriage  certificate,"  she  said  dully, 
hardly  conscious  of  her  words.  "I  have  it." 

"Here? — by  you?"  with  quick  curiosity. 

"Yes ;  upstairs — in  my  little  desk." 

"Ah,"  he  said,  with  almost  a  laugh  of  relief.  "That 
settles  it.  You  with  the  certificate  and  I  with  Harney ! 
Why,  we've  got  them." 

"We?"  she  said,  looking  up  as  though  waking. 
"We?" 

"Yes ;  we,"  he  answered. 

He  had  come  close  to  her  and,  standing  at  her  side, 
bent  his  head  in  order  to  look  more  directly  into  her 
face. 

"This  ought  to  put  an  end,  dear,  to  your  objec 
tions,"  he  said  gently;  "you  can't  do  it  alone.  No 
woman  could,  much  less  one  like  you — young,  inex 
perienced,  ignorant  of  the  world.  You've  got  no  idea 
what  a  big  contest  like  this  means.  There  must  be  a 
man  to  help  you,  and  I  must  be  that  man,  Mariposa. 
We  can  marry  quietly  as  soon  as  you  are  ready.  It 
would  be  better  not  to  make  any  move  until  after  that, 
as  it  would  be  much  easier  for  me  to  conduct  the 
campaign  as  your  husband  than  as  your  fiance.  I'd 
take  the  whole  thing  off  your  shoulders.  You'd  have 
almost  nothing  to  do,  except  be  certain  of  your  mem 
ories  and  dates,  and  I'd  see  to  it  that  you  were  letter 
perfect  in  that  when  the  time  came.  I'd  stand  be 
tween  you  and  everything  that  was  disagreeable." 


344  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

He  took  her  hand,  which  for  the  moment  was  pas 
sive  in  his. 

"When  will  it  be?"  he  said,  giving  it  a  gentle 
squeeze  ;  "when,  sweetheart  ?" 

She  tore  her  hand  away. 

"Why,  you're  crazy,"  she  cried.  "There'll  never 
be  any  of  it.  Never  be  any  claim  made  or  contest,  or 
anything  that  you  talk  of.  You  want  me  to  make 
money  out  of  my  mother's  story  that  was  a  tragedy — 
that  I  can  hardly  think  of  myself!  Oh! — "  She 
turned  around,  speechless,  and  put  her  hand  to  her 
mouth. 

She  thought  of  her  dying  mother,  and  grief  for  that 
smitten  soul,  so  deeply  loved,  so  tenderly  loving,  rent 
her  with  a  throe  of  pity,  poignant  as  bodily  pain. 

"Your  mother  is  dead,"  he  said,  understanding  her 
and  feeling  some  real  sympathy  for  her.  "It  can't 
hurt  her  now." 

"Drag  it  all  out  into  the  light,"  she  went  on.  "Fight 
in  a  court  with  those  horrible  Shackletons!  Have  it 
in  the  papers  and  all  the  mean,  low  people  in  Califor 
nia,  who  couldn't  for  one  moment  understand  any 
thing  that  was  pure  and  noble,  jeering  and  talking 
over  my  father  and  mother!  That's  what  you  call 
establishing  my  claim,  isn't  it?" 

"That's  not  all  of  it,"  he  stammered,  taken  aback 
by  her  violence.  "And,  anyway,  it's  all  true." 

"Well,  then,  I'll  lie  and  say  it  was  false.  If  it  came 
to  fighting  I'd  say  it  was  false.  That  I  was  not  Jake 
Shackleton's  daughter,  and  that  my  mother  never 
knew  him,  or  saw  him,  or  heard  of  him.  I'd  burn  that 


WITH    ME   TO    HELP  345 

certificate  and  say  there  never  was  such  a  thing,  and 
that  anybody  who  suggested  it  was  a  liar  or  a  madman. 
And  when  it  comes  to  you,  there's  just  one  thing  to 
say:  I  wouldn't  marry  you  if  forty  fortunes  hung 
on  it.  I'd  rather  beg  or  steal  than  be  your  wife  if 
you  owned  all  the  Comstock  mines.  That's  the  future 
you  think  is  going  to  tempt  me — you  for  a  husband 
and  a  fortune  for  us  both,  made  by  proving  that  my 
mother  was  never  really  married  to  the  man  I  called 
my  father!" 

"But — but,"  he  said,  not  heeding  her  anger  in  his 
bewildered  amazement,  "you  intended  it  sooner  or 
later  yourself?" 

"I? — I? — Betray  my  parents  for  money?  7  do 
that?" 

She  stared  at  him,  with  eyes  of  wild  indignation. 
He  began  to  have  a  cold  comprehension  of  what  she 
felt,  and  it  shook  him  as  violently  as  his  passion  for 
her  had  ever  done. 

"But  you  don't  understand,"  he  cried.  "This  is 
not  a  matter  of  thousands ;  it's  millions,  and  it's  yours 
by  right.  It's  a  colossal  fortune  here  in  your  hand — 
yours  almost  for  the  asking." 

"It  will  never  be  mine.  I  wouldn't  have  it.  Oh, 
let  me  go!  This  is  too  horrible." 

"Wait — just  one  moment.  If  it  came  to  an  actual 
suit  it  might  be  painful  and  trying  for  you.  But  how 
if  I  can  arrange  a  compromise  with  Mrs.  Shackleton? 
I  think  I  can.  When  she  knows  that  you  have  the 
proofs  of  the  marriage  she'll  be  glad  enough  to  settle. 
She  doesn't  want  these  things  to  come  out  any  more 


346  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

than  you  do.  She's  a  smart  woman,  and  she'll  know 
that  your  silence  is  the  most  valuable  thing  she  can 
buy.  Do  you  understand?" 

"I  understand  just  one  thing." 

"What's  that?" 

"You." 

For  the  second  time  they  looked  at  each  other  for 
a  motionless,  deep-breathing  moment.  There  was 
nothing  in  their  faces  or  attitudes  that  suggested 
lovers.  They  looked  like  a  pair  of  antagonists  at 
pause  in  their  struggle — on  the  alert  for  a  continuance 
of  battle. 

"Yes,  I  understand  you  now,"  she  said  in  a  low 
voice ;  "you've  made  me  understand  you." 

"I  only  want  to  make  you  understand  one  thing — 
how  much  I  love  you." 

She  drew  back  with  a  movement  of  violent  repug 
nance.  He  suddenly  stretched  out  his  arms  and  came 
toward  her. 

She  ran  toward  the  door,  for  the  moment  forgetting 
it  was  locked.  Then,  as  it  resisted,  memory  awoke. 
He  was  beside  her  and  tried  to  take  her  in  his  arms, 
but  she  turned  and  struck  him,  with  all  her  force,  a 
blow  on  the  face.  She  saw  the  skin  redden  under  it. 

"Open  the  door!"  she  gasped;  "open  the  door!" 

For  the  moment  the  blow  so  stunned  and  enraged 
him  that  he  drew  back  from  her,  his  hand  instinctively 
rising  to  the  smarting  skin.  An  oath  burst  from  his 
compressed  mouth. 

"I'd  like  to  kill  you  for  that,"  he  said. 

"Open  the  door,"  she  almost  shrieked,  rattling  the 
handle. 


WITH   ME   TO   HELP  347 

"I'll  pay  you  for  this.  You  seem  to  forget  that  I 
know  all  the  disreputable  secrets  of  your  beginnings. 
I  can  tell  all  the  world  how  your  mother  was  sold  to 
Dan  Moreau,  and  how — " 

Mariposa  heard  the  click  of  the  gate  and  a  step  on 
the  outside  stairs.  She  drowned  the  sound  of  Essex's 
voice  in  a  sudden  furious  pounding  on  the  door,  while 
she  cried  with  the  full  force  of  her  lungs : 

"Benito !  Miguel !  Mrs.  Garcia ! — Come  and  open 
this  door!  Come  and  let  me  out!  I'm  locked  in! 
Come !" 

Essex  was  at  the  door  in  an  instant,  the  key  in  the 
lock.  As  he  turned  it  he  gave  her  a  murderous  look. 

"You  fool !"  he  said  under  his  breath. 

As  the  portal  swung  open  and  he  passed  into  the 
hall,  the  front  door  was  violently  pushed  inward,  and 
Barron  almost  fell  against  him  in  the  hurry  of  his 
entrance. 

The  new-comer  drew  back  from  the  departing 
stranger  with  an  apologetic  start. 

"Beg  your  pardon,"  he  said  bruskly,  "but  I  thought 
I  heard  some  one  scream  in  here." 

"Scream?"  said  Essex,  languidly  selecting  his  hat 
from  the  disreputable  collection  on  the  rack ;  "I  didn't 
notice  it,  and  I've  been  sitting  in  there  for  nearly  an 
hour  with  Miss  Moreau.  I  fancy  you've  made  a  mis 
take." 

"I  guess  I  must  have.     It's  odd." 

The  hall  door  slammed  behind  Essex,  and  the  other 
man  turned  into  the  parlor,  where  the  light  was  now 
very  dim.  In  his  exit  from  the  room  Essex  had  flung 
the  door  open  with  violence,  and  Mariposa,  who  had 


348  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

backed  against  the  wall,  was  still  standing  behind  it. 
As  Barren  pushed  it  to  he  saw  her,  a  vague  black 
figure  with  white  hands  and  face,  in  the  dark. 

"What  on  earth  are  you  doing  there  ?"  he  said ; 
"standing  behind  the  door  like  a  child  in  the  corner." 

She  thanked  heaven  for  the  friendly  dark  and  an 
swered  hurriedly : 

"I — I — I — didn't  want  you  to  catch  me.  I'm  so — 
so — untidy." 

"Untidy?  I  never  saw  you  untidy,  and  don't  be 
lieve  you  ever  were.  I  met  a  man  in  the  hall,  who 
said  he'd  been  here  for  an  hour.  You  must  have 
been  playing  puss  in  the  corner  with  him." 

"Yes ;  his  name's  Essex,  and  he's  a  friend  of  Mrs. 
Willers'  that  I  know.  He  was  here,  and  I  thought 
he'd  come  about  music  lessons,  so  I  came  down  look 
ing  rather  untidy.  That  was  how  it  happened." 

"And  he  stayed  an  hour  talking  about  music  les 
sons  ?" 

"No — oh,  no ;  other  things." 

They  turned  into  the  hall,  Barron,  in  his  character 
of  general  guardian  of  the  Garcia  fortunes,  shutting 
the  door  of  the  state  apartment.  He  had  the  appear 
ance  of  taking  no  notice  of  Mariposa,  but  as  soon  as 
he  got  into  the  light  of  the  hall  gas  he  sent  a  lightning- 
like  glance  over  her  face. 

"It  was  funny,"  he  said,  "but  as  I  came  up  the 
steps  I  thought  I  heard  some  one  calling  out.  I 
dashed  in  and  fell  into  the  arms  of  your  music-lesson 
man,  who  said  no  cries  of  any  kind  had  disturbed  the 
joy  of  his  hour  in  your  society." 

Mariposa  had  begun  to  ascend  the  stairs. 


WITH    ME   TO    HELP  349 

"Cries?"  she  said  over  her  shoulder;  "I  don't  think 
there  were  any  cries.  Why  should  any  one  cry  out 
here?" 

"That's  exactly  what  I  wanted  to  know,"  he  said, 
watching  her  ascending  back. 

She  turned  and  passed  out  of  sight  at  the  top  of 
the  stairs.  Barren  stood  below  under  the  hall  gas, 
his  head  drooped.  He  was  puzzled,  for,  say  what  they 
might,  he  was  certain  he  had  heard  cries. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

NOT    MADE   IN    HEAVEN 

"Women  are  like  tricks  by  sleight  of  hand 
Which  to  admire  we  should  not  understand." 

— CONGREVE. 

At  The  Trumpet  office  the  next  morning  Essex 
found  a  letter  awaiting  him.  It  was  from  Mrs. 
Shackleton,  asking  him  to  dinner  on  a  certain  evening 
that  week — "very  informally,  Mr.  Essex  would  under 
stand,  as  the  family  was  in  such  deep  mourning." 

Essex  turned  the  letter  over,  smiling  to  himself.  It 
was  an  admirable  testimony  to  Bessie's  capability.  Her 
monogram,  gilded  richly,  adorned  the  top  of  the  sheet 
of  cream-laid  paper,  and  beneath  it,  in  a  fine  running 
hand,  were  the  few  carefully-worded  sentences,  and 
then  the  signature — Bessie  A.  Shackleton.  It  was  a 
remarkable  letter,  considering  all  things ;  wonderful 
testimony  to  that  adaptive  cleverness  which  is  the  birth 
right  of  Bessie's  countrywomen.  In  her  case  this 
care  of  externals  had  not  been  a  haphazard  acquire 
ment.  She  was  not  the  woman  to  be  slipshod  or 
trust  to  the  tutoring  of  experience.  When  her  hus 
band's  star  had  begun  to  rise  with  such  dazzling  efful 
gence  she  had  hired  teachers  for  herself,  as  well  as 

350 


NOT   MADE   IN   HEAVEN  351 

those  for  Maud,  and  there  were  many  books  of  eti 
quette  on  the  shelves  in  her  boudoir. 

The  letter  contained  more  for  Essex  than  a  simple 
invitation  to  dinner.  It  was  the  first  move  of  the 
Shackleton  faction  in  the  direction  he  desired  to  see 
them  take.  Bessie  had  evidently  heard  something  that 
had  made  her  realize  he,  too,  might  be  more  than  a 
pawn  in  the  game.  He  answered  the  note  with  a  sen 
tence  of  acceptance  and  a  well-turned  phrase,  express 
ing  his  pleasure  at  the  thought  of  meeting  her  again. 

He  was  not  in  an  agreeable  frame  of  mind.  His 
interview  with  Mariposa  had  roused  the  sleeping  devil 
within  him,  which,  of  late,  had  only  been  drowsy.  His 
worst  side — ugly  traits  inherited  from  his  rascally 
father — was  developing  with  overmastering  force. 
Lessons  learned  in  those  obscure  and  unchronicled 
years  when  he  had  swung  between  London  and  Paris 
were  beginning  to  bear  fruit.  At  the  blow  from  Mari 
posa  a  crop  of  red-veined  passions  had  burst  into  life 
and  grown  with  the  speed  of  Jack's  beanstalk.  His 
face  burned  with  the  memory  of  that  blow.  When  he 
recalled  its  stinging  impact,  he  did  not  know  whether 
he  loved  or  hated  Mariposa  most.  But  his  determina 
tion  to  force  her  to  marry  him  strengthened  with  her 
openly  expressed  abhorrence.  The  memory  of  her 
face  as  she  struck  at  him  was  constantly  before  his 
mental  vision,  and  his  fury  seethed  to  the  point  of  a 
still,  level-brimming  tensity,  when  he  recalled  the  fear 
and  hatred  in  it. 

The  dinner  at  Mrs.  Shackleton's  was  a  small  and 
informal  one.  The  company  of  six — for,  besides  him 
self,  the  only  guests  were  the  Count  de  Lamolle  and 


352  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Pussy  Thurston — looked  an  exceedingly  meager  array 
in  the  vast  drawing-room,  whose  stately  proportions 
were  rendered  even  larger  by  mirrors  which  rose  from 
the  floor  to  the  cornice,  elongating  the  room  by  many 
shadowy  reflections.  A  small  fire  burned  at  each  end, 
under  mantels  of  Mexican  onyx,  and  these  two  little 
palpitating  hearts  of  heat  were  the  brightest  spots  in 
the  spacious  apartment  where  even  Miss  Thurston 's 
dress  of  pale-blue  gauze  seemed  to  melt  into  the  effac 
ing  shadows. 

The  Count  de  Lamolle  gave  Essex  a  quick  glance, 
and,  as  they  stood  together  in  front  of  one  of  the  fires 
— the  two  girls  and  Win  having  moved  away  to  look 
at  a  painting  of  Bouguereau's  on  an  easel — addressed 
a  casual  remark  to  him  in  French.  The  count  had  al 
ready  met  the  newspaper  man,  and  set  him  down, 
without  illusion  or  hesitation,  as  a  clever  adventurer. 
He  overcame  his  surprise  at  meeting  him  in  the  house 
of  the  bonanza  widow,  by  the  reflection  that  this  was 
the  United  States  where  all  men  are  equal,  and  women 
with  money  free  to  be  wooed  by  any  of  them. 

The  count  was  in  an  uncertain  and  almost  uncom 
fortable  state  of  mind.  The  letter  he  had  received 
from  Mrs.  Shackleton,  bidding  him  to  the  feast,  was 
the  second  from  her  since  Maud's  rejection  of  him. 
The  first  had  been  of  a  consolatory  and  encouraging 
nature.  Mrs.  Shackleton  told  him  that  Maud  was 
young,  and  that  many  women  said  no,  when  they 
meant  yes.  The  count  knew  both  these  things  as  well 
as  Mrs.  Shackleton;  the  latter,  even  better.  But  it 
seemed  to  him  that  Maud,  young  though  she  was,  had 


NOT   MADE   IN   HEAVEN  353 

not  meant  yes,  and  the  handsome  Frenchman  was  not 
the  man  to  force  his  attentions  on  any  woman.  He 
watched  her  without  appearing  to  notice  her.  She 
had  been  greatly  embarrassed  at  sight  of  him,  and  only 
for  the  briefest  moment  let  her  cold  fingers  touch  his 
palm.  Under  the  flood  of  light  from  the  dining-room 
chandelier  she  looked  plainer  than  ever;  her  lack  of 
color  and  stolid  absence  of  animation  being  even  more 
noticeable  than  usual  in  contrast  with  the  brilliant 
pink  and  white  prettiness  of  Pussy  Thurston,  who 
chattered  gaily  with  everybody,  and  attempted  a  little 
French  with  De  Lamolle. 

Maud  sat  beside  Essex,  and  even  that  easily  fluent 
gentleman  found  her  difficult  to  interest.  She  ap 
peared  dull  and  unresponsive.  Looking  at  her  with 
slightly  narrowed  eyes,  he  wondered  how  the  count, 
of  whose  name  and  exploits  he  had  often  heard  in 
Paris,  could  contemplate  so  brave  an  act  as  marrying 
her. 

The  count,  who,  having  more  heart,  could  see  deeper, 
asked  himself  if  the  girl  was  really  unhappy.  As  he 
listened  to  Miss  Thurston's  marvelous  French  he  won 
dered,  with  a  little  expanding  heat  of  irritation,  if  the 
mother  was  trying  to  force  the  marriage  against  the 
daughter's  wish.  He  had  broken  hearts  in  his  day, 
but  it  was  not  a  pastime  he  found  agreeable.  He  was 
too  gallant  a  gentleman  to  woo  where  his  courtship 
was  unwelcome. 

When  the  gentlemen  entered  the  drawing-room  from 
their  after-dinner  wine  and  cigars,  they  found  the  la 
dies  seated  by  one  of  the  fires  below  the  Mexican 


354  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

onyx  mantels.  Bessie  rose  as  they  approached  and, 
turning  to  Essex,  asked  him  if  he  had  seen  the  Bou- 
guereau  on  the  easel,  and  steered  him  toward  it. 

"It  was  one  of  Mr.  Shackleton's  last  purchases," 
she  said ;  "he  was  very  anxious  to  have  a  fine  collec 
tion.  He  had  great  taste." 

Her  companion,  looking  at  the  plump,  pearly- 
skinned  nymph  and  her  attendant  cupids,  thought  of 
Harney's  description  of  Shackleton  in  the  days  when 
he  had  first  entered  California,  and  said,  with  convic 
tion  : 

"What  a  remarkably  versatile  man  your  husband 
was !  I  had  no  idea  he  was  interested  in  art." 

"Oh,  he  loved  it,"  said  Bessie,  "and  knew  a  great 
deal  about  it.  We  were  in  Europe  two  years  ago  for 
six  months,  and  Mr.  Shackleton  and  I  visited  a  great 
many  studios.  That  is  a  Meissonier  over  there,  and 
that  one  we  bought  from  Rosa  Bonheur.  She's  an  in 
teresting  woman,  looked  just  like  a  man.  Then  in 
the  Moorish  room  there's  a  Gerome.  Would  you  like 
to  see  it  ?  It's  considered  a  very  fine  example." 

He  expressed  his  desire  to  see  the  Gerome,  and 
followed  Bessie's  rustling  wake  into  the  Moorish  room. 
The  little  room  was  warm,  with  its  handful  of  fire,  and 
softly  lit  with  chased  and  perforated  lanterns  of  bronze 
and  brass.  The  heat  had  drawn  the  perfume  from  the 
bowls  full  of  roses  and  violets  that  stood  about  and 
the  air  was  impregnated  with  their  sweetness.  The 
Gerome,  a  scene  in  the  interior  of  a  harem,  with  a 
woman  dancing,  stood  on  an  easel  in  one  corner. 

"That's  it,"  said  Bessie,  drawing  to  one  side  that 
he  might  see  it  better.  "One  on  the  same  sort  of  sub- 


NOT    MADE   IN    HEAVEN  355 

ject  was  in  the  studio  when  we  first  went  there,  but 
Mr.  Shackleton  thought  it  was  too  small,  and  this  was 
painted  to  order." 

"Superb,"  murmured  Essex;  "Gerome  at  his  best." 

"We  hoped,"  continued  Bessie,  sinking  into  a  seat, 
"to  have  a  fine  collection,  and  build  a  gallery  for  them 
out  in  the  garden.  There  was  plenty  of  room,  and 
they  would  have  shown  off  better  all  together  that 
way,  rather  than  scattered  about  like  this.  But  I've 
no  ambition  to  do  it  now,  and  they'll  stay  as  they  are." 

"Why.  don't  you  go  on  with  the  collection?"  said 
the  young  man,  taking  a  seat  on  a  square  stool  of 
carved  teak  wood.  "It  would  be  a  most  interesting 
thing  to  do,  and  you  could  go  abroad  every  year  or 
two,  and  go  to  the  studios  and  buy  direct  from  the 
artists.  It's  much  the  best  way." 

"Oh,  I  couldn't,"  she  said,  with  a  little  shrug;  "I 
don't  know  enough  about  it.  I  only  know  what  I  like, 
and  I  generally  like  the  wrong  thing.  I'm  not  versa 
tile  like  my  husband.  When  I  first  came  to  California 
I  didn't  know  a  chromo  from  an  oil  painting.  In  fact," 
she  said,  looking  at  him  frankly  and  laughing  a  little, 
"I  don't  think  I'd  ever  seen  an  oil  painting." 

Essex  returned  the  laugh  and  murmured  a  word  or 
two  of  complimentary  disbelief.  He  was  wondering 
when  she  would  get  to  the  real  subject  of  conversa 
tion  which  had  led  them  to  the  Gerome  and  the  Moor 
ish  room.  She  was  nearer  than  he  thought. 

"It  would  be  a  temptation  to  go  to  Paris  every  year 
or  two,"  she  said.  "That's  the  most  delightful  place  in 
the  world.  It's  your  home,  isn't  it?  So,  of  course, 
you  agree  with  me." 


356  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Yes,  I  was  born  there,  and  have  lived  there  off  and 
on  ever  since.  To  me,  there  is  only  one  Paris." 

"And  can  you  fancy  any  one  having  the  chance  to 
go  there,  and  live  and  study,  with  no  trouble  about 
money,  refusing?" 

Essex  looked  into  the  fire,  and  responded  in  a  tone 
that  suggested  polite  indifference: 

"No,  that's  quite  beyond  my  powers  of  imagination." 

"I  have  a  sort  of — I  think  you  call  it  protegee — isn't 
that  the  word  ? — yes" — in  answer  to  his  nod — "whom  I 
want  to  send  to  Paris.  She's  a  young  girl  with  a  fine 
voice.  Mr.  Shackleton  was  very  much  interested  in 
her.  He  knew  her  father  in  the  mining  days  of  the 
early  fifties  and  wanted  to  pay  off  some  old  scores  by 
helping  the  daughter.  And  now  the  daughter  seems 
to  dislike  being  helped." 

"There  are  such  people,"  said  Essex  in  the  same 
tone.  "Does  she  dislike  the  idea  of  going  to  Paris, 
too?" 

"That  seems  to  be  it.  We  both  wanted  to  send  her 
there,  have  her  voice  trained,  and  put  her  in  the  way 
of  becoming  a  singer.  Lepine,  when  he  was  here, 
heard  her  and  thought  she  had  the  making  of  a  prima 
donna.  But,"  she  suddenly  looked  at  him  with  a  half- 
puzzled  expression  of  inquiry,  "I  think  you  know  her — 
Miss  Moreau?" 

Essex  looked  back  at  her  for  a  moment  with  baf- 
flingly  expressionless  eyes. 

"Yes,  I  know  her.  She's  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Willers's, 
one  of  the  Sunday  edition  people  on  The  Trumpet.  A 
very  handsome  and  charming  girl." 

"That's  the  girl,"  said  Bessie,  mentally  admiring 


NOT   MADE   IN   HEAVEN  357 

his  perfect  aplomb.  "She's  a  very  fine  girl,  and,  as 
you  say,  handsome.  But  I  don't  think  she's  got  much 
common  sense.  Girls  don't,  as  a  rule,  have  more  than 
enough  to  get  along  on.  But  when  they're  poor,  and 
so  alone  in  the  world,  they  ought  to  pick  up  a  little." 

"Certainly,  to  refuse  an  offer  such  as  you  speak  of, 
argues  a  lack  of  something.  Have  you  any  idea  of 
her  reason  for  refusing?" 

He  looked  at  Bessie  as  he  propounded  the  question, 
his  eyelids  lowered  slightly.  She,  in  her  turn,  let  her 
keen  gray  glance  rest  on  him.  The  thought  flashed 
through  her  mind  that  it  was  only  another  evidence 
of  Mariposa's  peculiarity  of  disposition  that  she  should 
have  refused  so  handsome  and  attractive  a  man. 

"No — "  she  said  with  unruffled  placidity,  "I  don't 
understand  it.  She's  a  proud  girl  and  objects  to  being 
under  obligations.  But  then  this  wouldn't  be  an  obli 
gation.  Apart  from  everything  else,  there's  no  ques 
tion  about  obligations  where  singers  and  artists  and 
people  like  that  are  concerned.  It's  all  a  matter  of 
art." 

"Art  levels  all  things,"  said  the  young  man  glibly. 

"That's  what  I  always  thought.  But  Miss  Moreau 
doesn't  seem  to  agree  with  me.  The  most  curious 
part  of  it  all  is  that  she  was  willing  to  go  in  the  begin 
ning.  That  was  before  her  mother  died ;  then  she  sud 
denly  changed  her  mind,  wouldn't  hear  of  it,  and  said 
she'd  prefer  staying  here  in  San  Francisco,  teaching 
music  at  fifty  cents  a  lesson.  I  must  say  I  was  an 
noyed.  I  had  her  here  and  talked  to  her  quite  se 
verely,  but  it  didn't  seem  to  make  any  impression.  I 
was  puzzled  to  death  to  understand  it.  But  after  think- 


358  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

ing  for  a  while,  and  wondering  what  could  make  a 
girl  prefer  San  Francisco  and  teaching  music  at  fifty 
cents  a  lesson,  to  Paris  and  being  a  prima  donna,  I 
came  to  the  conclusion  there  was  only  one  thing  could 
influence  a  woman  to  that  extent — there  was  a  man  in 
the  case." 

She  saw  Essex,  whose  eyes  were  on  the  fire,  raise 
his  brows  by  way  of  a  polite  commentary  on  her  words. 

"That  sounds  a  very  plausible  solution  of  the  prob 
lem,"  he  said.  "Love's  a  deadly  enemy  to  common 
sense." 

"That's  the  way  it  seemed  to  me.  She  had  fallen  in 
love,  and  evidently  the  man  had  not  enough  money  to 
marry  on,  or  was  in  a  poor  position,  or  something. 
When  I  thought  of  that  I  was  certain  I'd  found  the 
clue.  The  silly  girl  was  going  to  give  up  everything 
for  love.  I  suppose  I  ought  to  have  felt  touched.  But 
I  really  felt  sort  of  mad  with  her  at  first.  Afterward, 
thinking  it  over,  I  decided  it  was  not  so  foolish,  and 
now  I've  veered  round  so  far  that  I'm  inclined  to  en 
courage  it." 

"On  general  principles  you  think  domesticity  is  bet 
ter  for  a  woman  than  the  glare  of  the  footlights  ?" 

"No,  not  that  way.  I  think  a  gift  like  Mariposa 
Moreau's  should  be  cultivated  and  given  to  the  public. 
I  never  had  any  sympathy  with  that  man  in  the  Bible 
who  buried  his  talent  in  the  ground.  I  think  talents 
were  made  to  be  used.  What  I  thought,  was,  why 
shouldn't  Mariposa  marry  the  man  she  cared  for  and 
go  with  him  to  Paris.  It  would  be  a  much  better  ar 
rangement  all  round.  She  isn't  very  smart  or  capa- 


NOT   MADE   IN   HEAVEN  359 

ble,  and  she's  young  and  childish  for  her  years.  Don't 
you  think  she  is,  Mr.  Essex?" 

Essex  again  raised  his  eyebrows  and  looked  into 
the  fire. 

"Yes,"  he  said  in  a  dubious  tone.  "Yes,  I  suppose 
she  is.  She  is  certainly  not  a  sophisticated  or  worldly 
person." 

"That's  just  it.  She's  green — green  about  every 
thing.  Some  way  or  other  I  didn't  like  the  thought 
of  sending  her  off  there  by  herself,  where  she  didn't 
know  a  soul.  And  then  she's  so  handsome.  If  she 
was  ugly  it  wouldn't  matter  so  much.  But  she's  very 
good-looking,  and  when  you  add  that  to  her  being  so 
inexperienced  and  green  about  everything  you  begin 
to  realize  the  responsibility  of  sending  her  alone  to 
a  strange  country,  especially  Paris." 

"Paris  is  not  a  city,"  commented  her  companion, 
"where  young,  beautiful  and  unprotected  females  are 
objects  of  public  protection  and  solicitude." 

"That's  the  reason  why  I  want,  now,  to  encourage 
this  marriage.  With  a  husband  that  she  loves  to  take 
care  of  her,  everything  would  be  smooth  sailing. 
She'd  be  happy  and  not  homesick  or  strange.  He'd 
be  there  with  her,  to  watch  over  her  and  prob 
ably  help  her  with  her  studies.  Perhaps  he  could 
get  some  position,  just  to  occupy  his  time.  Because, 
so  far  as  money  went,  I'd  see  to  it  that  they  were 
well  provided  for  during  the  time  she  was  preparing. 
Lepine  said  that  he  thought  two  or  three  years  would 
be  sufficient  for  her  to  study.  Well,  I'd  give  them 
fifteen  thousand  dollars  to  start  on.  And  if  that  wasn't 


360  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

enough,  or  she  was  not  ready  to  appear  at  the  expected 
time,  there  would  be  more.  There'd  be  no  question 
about  means  of  living,  anyway.  They  could  just  put 
that  out  of  their  heads." 

"I  have  always  heard  that  Mrs.  Shackleton  was  gen 
erous,"  said  Essex,  looking  at  her  with  a  slight  smile. 

"Oh,  generous !"  she  said,  with  a  little  movement  of 
impatience,  which  was  genuine.  "This  is  no  question 
of  generosity;  I  want  the  girl  to  go  and  be  a  singer, 
and  I  don't  want  her  to  go  alone.  Now,  I've  found  out 
a  way  for  her  to  go  that  will  be  agreeable  to  her  and 
to  me,  and,  I  take  for  granted,  to  the  man." 

She  looked  at  Essex  with  a  smile  that  almost  said 
she  knew  him  to  be  that  favored  person. 

"Of  course,"  she  continued,  "it  would  be  better  for 
him  to  get  some  work.  It's  bad  for  man  or  woman  to 
be  idle.  If  he  knows  how  to  write,  it  would  be  an 
easy  matter  to  make  him  Paris  correspondent  of  The 
Trumpet.  It  was  my  husband's  intention  to  have  a 
correspondent,  and  he  had  some  idea  of  offering  it  to 
Mrs.  Willers.  But  it's  not  the  work  for  her,  nor  she 
the  woman  for  it.  It  ought  to  be  a  man,  and  a  man 
that's  conversant  with  the  country  and  the  language. 
There'll  be  a  good  salary  to  go  with  it.  Win  was  talk 
ing  about  it  only  the  other  evening." 

"What  a  showering  of  good  fortune  on  one  person," 
said  Essex — "a  position  ready-made,  a  small  fortune 
and  a  beautiful  wife!  He  must  be  a  favorite  of  the 
gods." 

"You  can  call  it  what  you  like,  Mr.  Essex,"  said 
Bessie.  "It's  been  my  experience  that  the  gods  take 


NOT   MADE   IN   HEAVEN  361 

for  their  favorites  men  and  women  who've  got  some 
hustle.  Everybody  has  a  chance  some  time  or  other. 
Miss  Moreau  and  her  young  man  have  theirs  now." 

She  rose  to  her  feet,  for  at  that  moment,  Pussy 
Thurston  appeared  in  the  doorway  to  say  good  night. 

The  pretty  creature  had  cast  more  than  one  covertly 
admiring  look  at  Essex,  during  the  dinner,  and  now, 
as  she  held  out  her  hand  to  him  in  farewell,  she  said 
after  the  informal  Western  fashion: 

"Won't  you  come  to  see  me,  Mr.  Essex?  I'm  al 
ways  at  home  on  Sunday  afternoon.  If  you're  bash 
ful,  Win  will  bring  you.  He  comes  sometimes  when 
he's  got  nowhere  else  in  the  world  to  go  to." 

Win,  who  was  just  behind  her,  expressed  his  willing 
ness  to  act  as  escort,  and  laughing  and  jesting,  the 
party  passed  through  the  doorway  into  the  drawing- 
room.  The  little  fires  were  burning  low.  By  the  light 
of  one,  Maud  and  Count  de  Lamolle  were  looking  at  a 
book  of  photographs  of  Swiss  views.  The  count's 
expression  was  enigmatic,  and  as  Bessie  approached 
them  she  heard  Maud  say : 

"Oh,  that's  a  mountain.  What's  the  name  of  it, 
now?  I  can't  remember.  It's  very  high  and  pointed, 
and  people  are  always  climbing  it  and  falling  into 
holes." 

"The  Matterhorn,  perhaps,"  suggested  the  count, 
politely. 

To  which  Maud  gave  a  relieved  assent.  Her  words 
were  commonplace  enough,  but  there  was  a  quality 
of  light-heartedness,  of  suppressed  elation,  in  her  voice, 
that  her  mother's  quick  ear  instantly  caught.  As  the 


362  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

girl  looked  up  at  their  approaching  figures  her  face 
showed  the  same  newly-acquired  sparkle  that  was  al 
most  joyous. 

It  had,  in  fact,  been  a  critical  evening  for  Maud,  and 
so  miserable  did  she  feel  her  situation  to  be,  that  she 
had  taken  her  courage  in  both  hands  and  struck  one 
desperate  blow  for  freedom. 

When  her  mother  and  Essex  had  begun  their  pic 
torial  migrations  she  had  felt  the  cold  dread  of  a  tete- 
a-tete  with  the  count  creeping  over  her  heart.  For  a 
space  she  had  tried  to  remain  attached  to  Win  and 
Pussy  Thornton,  but  neither  Win  nor  Pussy,  who  were 
old  friends  and  had  many  subjects  of  mutual  interest 
to  discuss,  encouraged  her  society.  Maud  was  not  the 
person  to  develop  diplomatic  genius  under  the  most 
favorable  circumstances.  Half  an  hour  after  the  men 
had  entered  the  drawing-room,  she  found  herself  alone 
with  the  count,  in  front  of  the  fire,  Win  and  Pussy 
having  strayed  away  to  the  Bouguereau. 

The  count  had  tried  various  subjects  of  conversa 
tion,  but  they  had  drooped  and  died  after  a  few  min 
utes  of  languishing  existence.  He  stood  with  his  back 
to  the  mantelpiece,  looking  curiously  at  Maud,  who 
sat  on  the  edge  of  an  armchair  just  within  reach  of 
the  fluctuating  light.  Her  hands  were  clasped  on  her 
knee  and  she  was  looking  down  so  that  he  could  not 
see  her  face. 

Suddenly  she  rose  to  her  feet  and  faced  him.  She 
was  pale  and  her  eyes  looked  miserable  and  terrified. 

"Count  de  Lamolle,"  she  breathed  in  a  tremulous 
voice. 


NOT   MADE   IN   HEAVEN  363 

"Mademoiselle,"  he  said,  moving  toward  her,  very 
much  surprised  by  her  appearance. 

"I've  got  to  say  something  to  you.  It  may  sound 
queer,  but  I've  got  to  say  it." 

"Dear  Miss,"  said  the  Frenchman,  really  concerned 
by  her  tragic  demeanor,  "say  whatever  pleases  you. 
I  am  only  here  to  listen." 

"You  don't  really  care  for  me.  Oh,  if  you'd  only  tell 
the  truth !" 

"That  is  a  strange  remark,"  he  said,  completely  taken 
by  surprise,  and  wondering  what  this  extraordinary 
girl  was  going  to  say  next. 

"If  I  thought  you  really  cared  it  would  be  different. 
Perhaps  I  couldn't  say  it.  I  hate  making  people  mis 
erable,  and  yet  so  many  people  make  me  miserable." 

"Who  makes  you  miserable,  dear  young  lady?"  he 
said,  honestly  touched. 

"You,"  she  almost  whispered.  "You  do.  You  don't 
mean  to,  I  know,  for  I  think  you're  kinder  than  lots 
of  other  men.  But — but —  Oh  please,  don't  keep  on 
asking  me  to  marry  you.  Don't  do  it  any  more ;  that 
makes  me  miserable.  Because  I  can't  do  it.  Truly,  I 
can't." 

Count  de  Lamolle  became  very  grave.  He  drew 
himself  up  with  an  odd,  stiff  air,  like  a  soldier. 

"If  a  lady  speaks  this  way  to  a  man,"  he  said,  "the 
man  can  only  obey." 

Maud  hung  on  his  words.  When  she  grasped  their 
import,  she  suddenly  moved  toward  him.  There  was 
something  pathetic  in  her  eagerness  of  gratitude. 

"Oh,  thanks !  thanks !    I  knew  you'd  do  it.    It's  not 


TOMORROWS    TANGLE 


you  I  object  to.  I  like  you  better  than  any  of  the 
others.  But"  —  she  glanced  over  her  shoulder  into  the 
lantern-lit  brilliance  of  the  Moorish  room  and  dropped 
her  voice  —  "there's  some  one  I  like  more." 

"Oh,"  said  the  count,  and  his  dark  eyes  turned  from 
her  face,  which  had  become  very  red. 

"He's  going  to  marry  me  some  day.  He's  just  Jack 
Latimer,  the  stenographer  in  the  office.  But  I  like 
him,  and  that's  all  there  is  to  it.  But  mommer's  terri 
bly  set  on  you.  And  she's  so  determined.  Oh,  Count 
de  Lamolle,  it's  very  hard  to  make  determined  people 
see  things  differently  to  what  they  want.  So  please, 
don't  want  to  marry  me  any  more,  for  if  you  don't 
want  to,  that  will  have  to  end  it." 

She  stopped,  her  lips  trembling.  The  count  took 
her  hand,  cold  and  clammy,  and  lifting  it  pressed  his 
lips  lightly  on  the  back.  Then,  dropping  it,  he  said, 
quietly  : 

"All  is  understood.  You  have  honored  me  highly, 
Mademoiselle,  by  giving  me  your  confidence." 

They  stood  silent  for  a  moment.  The  kiss  on  her 
hand,  the  something  friendly  and  kind  —  so  different 
from  the  cold  looks  of  unadmiring  criticism  she  was 
accustomed  to  —  in  the  man's  eyes  brought  her  uncom 
fortably  close  to  tears.  Few  people  had  been  kind  to 
Maud  Shackleton  in  the  midst  of  her  riches  and  splen 
dor. 

The  count  saw  her  emotion  and  turned  toward  the 
fire.  He  felt  more  drawn  to  her  than  he  had  ever 
been  during  his  courtship.  From  the  tail  of  his  eye  he 
saw  her  little  handkerchief  whisk  out  and  then  into 
her  pocket.  As  it  disappeared  he  said  : 


NOT    MADE   IN    HEAVEN  365 

"I  see,  Miss  Shackleton,  that  you  have  some  albums 
of  views  on  the  table.  Might  we  not  look  at  them  to 
gether?" 

Thus  it  was  that  Bessie  and  Essex  found  them. 
They  had  worked  through  two  volumes  of  Northern 
Italy,  and  were  in  Switzerland.  And  over  the  stiffened 
pages  with  their  photographs,  not  one-half  of  which 
Maud  could  remember  though  she  had  been  to  all  the 
places  on  her  trip  abroad,  they  had  come  nearer  being 
friends  than  ever  before. 


CHAPTER   XX 

THE   WOMAN   TALKS 

"My  heart  was  hot  within  me,  while  I  was  musing  the  fire 
burned;  then  I  spake  with  my  tongue." — PSALMS. 

The  morning  after  her  interview  with  Essex  Mari- 
posa  had  appeared  at  breakfast  white-cheeked  and  apa 
thetic.  She  had  eaten  nothing,  and  when  questioned 
as  to  her  state  of  health  had  replied  that  she  had 
passed  a  sleepless  night  and  had  a  headache.  Mrs. 
Garcia,  the  younger,  in  a  dingy  cotton  wrapper  belted 
by  a  white  apron,  shook  her  head  over  the  coffee-pot 
and  began  to  tell  how  the  late  Juan  Garcia  had  been 
the  victim  of  headaches  due  to  green  wall-paper. 

"But,"  said  Mrs.  Garcia,  looking  up  from  undei  the 
lambrequin  of  blond  curls  that  adorned  her  brow, 
"there's  nothing  green  in  your  wall-paper.  It's  white, 
with  gold  wheat-ears  on  it.  So  I  don't  see  what  gives 
you  headaches." 

"Headaches  do  come  from  other  things  besides  green 
wall-paper,"  said  Pierpont ;  "I've  had  them  from  over 
work.  I'd  advise  Miss  Moreau  to  give  her  pupils  a 
week's  holiday.  And  then  she  can  come  down  some 
afternoon  and  sing  for  me." 

This  was  an  old  subject  of  discourse  at  the  Garcia 
366 


THE   WOMAN   TALKS  367 

table,  Mariposa  continually  refusing  the  young  man's 
invitations  to  let  him  hear  and  pass  judgment  upon  her 
voice.  Since  he  had  met  her  he  had  heard  further  de 
tails  of  the  recital  at  the  opera-house  and  the  opinion 
of  Lepine,  and  was  openly  ambitious  to  have  Mariposa 
for  a  pupil.  Now  she  looked  up  at  him  with  a  sudden 
spark  of  animation  in  her  eyes. 

"I  will  some  day.  I'll  come  in  some  afternoon  and 
sing  for  you — some  afternoon  when  I  have  no  head 
ache,"  she  added  hastily,  seeing  the  prospect  of  urging 
in  his  eyes. 

Barron,  sitting  opposite,  had  been  watching  her 
covertly  through  the  meal.  He  saw  that  she  ate  noth 
ing,  and  guessed  that  the  headache  she  pleaded  was  the 
result  of  a  wakeful  night.  The  evening  before,  when 
he  had  gone  in  to  see  the  little  boys  in  bed,  he  had  cas 
ually  asked  them  if  they  had  been  playing  games  that 
afternoon  in  which  shouting  had  been  a  prominent 
feature. 

"Indians?"  Benito  had  suggested,  sitting  up  in  his 
cot  and  scratching  the  back  of  his  neck ;  "that's  a  hol 
lering  game." 

"Any  game  with  screams.  When  I  came  in  I 
thought  I  heard  shouts  coming  from  somewhere." 

"That  wasn't  us,"  said  Miguel  from  his  larger  bed 
in  the  corner.  "We  was  playing  burying  soldiers  in 
the  back  yard,  and  that's  a  game  where  you  bury  sol 
diers,  cut  out  of  the  papers,  in  the  sandy  place.  There's 
no  sorter  hollering  in  it.  Sometimes  we  play  we're 
crying,  but  that's  quiet." 

"P'raps,"  said  Benito  sleepily,  "it  was  Miss  Moreau's 
gentleman  in  the  parlor.  I  let  him  in.  They  might 


368  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

have  been  singing.  Now  tell  us  the  story  about  the 
Indians  and  the  pony  express." 

This  was  all  the  satisfaction  he  got  from  the  boys. 
After  the  story  was  told  he  did  not  go  downstairs,  but 
went  into  his  own  room  and  sat  by  his  littered  table, 
thinking.  The  details  of  his  entrance  into  the  house 
a  few  hours  before  were  engraved  on  his  mind's  eye. 
By  the  uncertain  gaslight  he  saw  the  dark  face  of  the 
stranger,  with  its  slightly  insolent  droop  of  eyelid  and 
non-committal  line  of  clean-shaven  lip.  It  was  to  his 
idea  a  disagreeable  face.  The  simple  man  in  him  read 
through  its  shield  of  reserve  to  the  complexities  be 
neath.  The  healthily  frank  American  saw  in  it  the 
intricate  sophistication  of  older  civilizations,  of  vast 
communities  where  "God  hath  made  man  upright ;  but 
they  have  sought  out  many  inventions." 

On  his  ear  again  fell  the  cold  politeness  of  the  voice. 
Gamaliel  Barren  was  too  lacking  in  any  form  of  self- 
consciousness,  was  too  indifferently  confident  of  him 
self  as  a  Westerner,  the  equal  of  any  and  all  human 
creatures,  to  experience  that  sensation  of  mauvaise 
honte  that  men  of  smaller  fiber  are  apt  to  feel  in  the 
presence  of  beings  of  superior  polish.  Polish  was 
nothing  to  him.  The  man  everything.  And  it  seemed 
to  him  he  had  seen  the  man,  deep  down,  in  that  one 
startled  moment  of  encounter  in  the  hall.  Thought 
fully  smoking  and  tilting  back  in  his  chair,  he  mentally 
summed  him  up  in  the  two  words,  "bad  egg."  He 
would  keep  his  eye  on  him,  and  to  do  so  would  put  off 
the  trip  to  the  mines  he  was  to  take  in  the  course  of 
the  next  two  weeks. 

The  next  morning  Mariposa's  appearance  at   the 


THE   WOMAN   TALKS  369 

breakfast  table  roused  the  uneasiness  he  felt  to  poignant 
anxiety.  With  the  keenness  of  growing  love,  he  real 
ized  that  it  was  the  mind  that  was  disturbed  more  than 
the  body.  He  came  home  to  lunch — an  unusual  devia 
tion,  as  he  almost  invariably  lunched  down  town  at  the 
Lick  House — and  found  her  at  the  table  as  pale  and 
distrait  as  ever.  After  the  meal  was  over  he  fol 
lowed  her  into  the  hall.  She  was  slowly  ascending  the 
stairs,  one  hand  on  the  balustrade,  her  long,  black 
dress  sliding  upward  from  stair  to  stair. 

He  followed  her  noiselessly,  and  at  the  top  of  the 
flight,  turning  to  go  to  her  room,  she  saw  him  and 
paused,  her  hand  still  touching  the  rail. 

"Miss  Moreau,"  he  said,  "you're  tired  out — too  tired 
to  teach.  Let  me  go  and  put  off  your  pupils.  I've  a 
lot  of  spare  time  this  afternoon." 

"How  kind  of  you,"  she  said,  looking  faintly  sur 
prised  ;  "I  haven't  any  this  afternoon,  luckily.  I  don't 
work  every  day ;  that's  the  point  I'm  trying  to  work  up 
to;  that's  my  highest  ambition." 

She  looked  down  at  his  upturned  face  and  gave  a 
slight  smile. 

"Is  it  overwork  that  kept  you  awake  last  night  and 
makes  you  look  so  pale  to-day?"  he  queried  in  a  low 
ered  voice. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know," — she  turned  away  her  face 
rather  impatiently, — "I'm  worried,  I  suppose.  Every 
body  has  to  be  worried,  don't  they?" 

"I  can't  bear  to  have  you  worried.  There  isn't  one 
wild,  crazy  thing  in  the  world  I  wouldn't  do  to  prevent 
it." 

He  was  looking  up  at  her  with  his  soul  in  his  eyes. 


370  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Barren  was  not  the  man  to  hide  or  juggle  with  his 
love.  It  possessed  him  now  and  shone  on  his  face. 
Mariposa's  eyes  turned  from  it  as  from  the  scrutiny  of 
something  at  once  painful  and  holy.  He  laid  his  hand 
on  hers  on  the  rail. 

"You  know  that,"  he  said,  his  deep  voice  shaken. 

Her  eyes  dropped  to  the  hands  and  she  mechanically 
noticed  how  white  her  fingers  looked  between  his  large, 
brown  ones.  She  drew  them  softly  away,  feeling  his 
glance  keen,  impassioned  and  unwavering  on  her  face. 

"Something's  troubling  you,"  he  continued  in  the 
same  voice.  "Why  won't  you  let  me  help  you?  You 
needn't  tell  me  what  it  is,  but  you  might  let  me  help 
you.  What  am  I  here  for  but  to  take  care  of  you,  and 
fight  for  you,  and  protect  you?" 

The  words  were  indescribably  sweet  to  the  lonely 
girl.  All  the  previous  night  she  had  tossed  on  her 
pillow  haunted  by  terror  of  Essex  and  what  he  intended 
to  do.  She  had  felt  herself  completely  helpless,  and 
her  uncertainty  at  what  step  he  meant  to  take  was  tor 
turing.  For  one  moment  of  weakness  she  thought  of 
pouring  it  all  out  to  the  man  beside  her,  whose  strong 
hand  on  her  own  had  seemed  symbolic  of  the  grip,  firm 
and  fearless,  he  could  take  on  the  situation  that  was 
threatening  her.  Then  she  realized  the  impossibility 
of  such  a  thing  and  drew  back  from  the  railing. 

"You  can't  help  me,"  she  said ;  "no  one  can." 

He  mounted  a  step  and  stretched  his  hand  over  the 
railing  to  try  to  detain  her. 

"But  I  can  do  one  thing :  I  can  always  be  here,  here 
close  to  you,  ready  to  come  when  you  call  me,  either  in 


THE   WOMAN   TALKS  371 

trouble  or  for  advice.  If  ever  you  want  help,  help  of 
any  kind,  I'll  be  here.  And  if  you  had  need  of  me  I 
think  I'd  know  it,  and  no  matter  where  I  was,  I'd  come. 
Remember  that." 

She  had  half  turned  away  toward  her  door  as  he 
spoke,  and  now  stood  in  profile,  a  tall  figure,  with  her 
throat  and  wrists  looking  white  as  milk  against  the 
hard  black  line  of  her  dress.  She  seemed  a  picture 
painted  in  few  colors,  her  hair  a  coppery  bronze,  and 
her  lips  a  clear,  pale  red,  being  the  brightest  tones  in 
the  composition. 

"Will  you  remember?"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  murmured. 

"And  when  you  want  help  come  to  me,  or  call  for  me, 
and  if  I  were  at  the  ends  of  the  world  I'd  hear  you  and 
come." 

She  turned  completely  away  without  answering  and, 
opening  her  door,  vanished  into  her  room. 

For  the  next  three  or  four  days  she  looked  much  the 
same.  Mrs.  Garcia,  junior,  talked  about  the  green 
wall-paper,  and  Mrs.  Garcia,  senior,  cooked  her  Mexi 
can  dainties,  which  were  so  hot  with  chilli  peppers  that 
only  a  seasoned  throat  could  swallow  them.  Mariposa 
tried  to  eat  and  to  talk,  but  both  efforts  were  failures. 
She  was  secretly  distracted  by  apprehensions  of  Essex's 
next  move.  She  thought  of  his  face  as  he  had  raised 
his  hand  to  his  smitten  cheek,  and  shuddered  at  the 
memory.  She  lived  in  daily  dread  of  his  reappearance. 
The  interview  had  shattered  her  nerves,  never  fully 
restored  from  the  series  of  miserable  events  that  had 
preceded  and  followed  her  mother's  death.  When  she 


372  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

heard  the  bell  ring  her  heart  sprang  from  her  breast 
to  her  throat,  and  a  desire  to  fly  and  hide  from  her 
persecutor  seized  her  and  held  her  quivering  and  alert. 

Barren's  anxiety  about  her,  though  not  again  openly 
expressed,  continued.  He  was  certain  that  some  blow 
to  her  peace  of  mind  had  been  delivered  by  the  man 
he  had  seen  in  the  hall.  He  did  not  like  to  question 
her,  or  attempt  an  intrusion  into  her  confidence,  but 
he  remembered  the  few  words  she  had  dropped  that 
evening.  The  man's  name  was  Essex,  and  he  was  a 
friend  of  Mrs.  Willers'.  Barron  had  known  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers  for  years.  He  had  been  a  guest  in  the  house  dur 
ing  the  period  of  her  tenancy,  and  though  he  did  not 
see  her  frequently,  had  retained  an  agreeable  memory 
of  her  and  her  daughter. 

It  was  therefore  with  great  relief  that,  a  few 
days  after  his  meeting  with  Essex,  he  encountered  her 
in  the  heart  of  a  gray  afternoon  crossing  Union  Square 
Plaza. 

Mrs.  Willers  was  hastening  down  to  The  Trumpet 
office  after  a  morning's  work  in  her  own  rooms.  Her 
rouge  had  been  applied  with  the  usual  haste,  and  she 
was  conscious  that  three  buttons  on  one  of  her  boots 
were  hardly  sufficient  to  retain  that  necessary  article 
in  place.  But  she  felt  brisk  and  light-hearted,  confi 
dent  that  the  article  in  her  hand  was  smart  and  spicy 
and  would  lend  brightness  to  her  column  in  The 
Trumpet. 

She  greeted  Barron  with  a  friendly  hail,  and  they 
paused  for  a  moment's  chat  in  the  middle  of  the  plaza. 

"You're  looking  fresh  as  a  summer  morning,"  said 
the  mining  man,  whose  life,  spent  searching  for  the 


THE   WOMAN    TALKS  373 

mineral  secrets  of  the  Sierra,  had  not  made  him  con 
versant  with  those  of  complexions  like  Mrs.  Willers'. 

"Oh,  get  out !"  said  she,  greatly  pleased ;  "I'm  too  old 
for  that  sort  of  taffy.  It's  almost  Edna's  turn  now." 

"I'll  be  afraid  to  see  Edna  soon.  She's  going  to  be 
such  a  beauty  that  the  only  safety's  in  flight." 

The  mother  was  even  more  pleased  at  this. 

"You're  right,"  she  said,  nodding  at  him  with  a 
grave  eye ;  "Edna's  a  beauty.  Where  she  gets  it  from 
is  what  stumps  me.  My  glass  tells  me  it's  not  from  her 
mommer,  and  my  memory  tells  me  it's  not  from  her 
popper." 

"There's  a  man  on  your  paper  called  Essex,"  said 
Barren,  who  was  not  one  to  beat  about  the  bush ;  "what 
sort  of  a  fellow  is  he,  Mrs.  Willers  ?" 

"A  bad  sort,  I'm  inclined  to  think.  Why  do  you 
ask?" 

"He  was  at  the  house  the  other  afternoon,  calling  on 
Miss  Moreau.  I  met  him  in  the  hall.  I  didn't  cotton 
to  him  at  all.  She  told  me  he  was  a  friend  of  yours 
and  a  writer  on  The  Trumpet." 

He  looked  at  her  inquiringly,  hardly  liking  to  go 
farther  till  she  gave  him  some  encouragement.  He 
noticed  that  her  expression  had  changed  and  that  she 
was  eying  him  with  a  hard,  considering  attention. 

"Why  didn't  you  like  his  looks?"  she  said. 

"Well,  I've  seen  men  like  that  before — at  the  mines. 
Good-looking  chaps,  who  are  sort  of  imitation  gentle 
men,  and  try  to  make  you  take  the  imitation  for  the 
real  thing  by  putting  on  dog.  I  didn't  like  his  style, 
anyhow,  and  I  don't  think  she  does,  either.". 


374  TOMORROWS  TANGLE 

"You're  right  about  that,"  said  Mrs.  Willers;  "do 
you  know  what  he  was  there  for?" 

"Something  about  music  lessons,  she  said.  I  didn't 
like  to  ask  her." 

"Music  lessons!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Willers,  with  a 
strong  inflection  of  surprise. 

"Yes,"  said  Barron,  uneasy  at  her  tone  and  the 
strange  look  of  almost  agitated  astonishment  on  her 
face;  "and  I'm  under  the  impression  he  said  some 
thing  to  her  that  frightened  her.  As  I  was  coming  up 
the  steps  that  afternoon  I  heard  distinctly  some  one  call 
out  in  the  drawing-room.  I  burst  in  on  the  full  jump, 
for  I  was  certain  it  was  a  woman's  voice,  and  that 
man  came  out  of  the  drawing-room  as  I  opened  the 
door.  He  was  smooth  as  a  summer  sea ;  said  he  hadn't 
heard  a  sound,  and  went  out  smirking.  Then  I  went 
into  the  drawing-room  to  see  who  had  been  in  there 
and  found  Miss  Moreau,  leaning  against  the  wall  and 
white  as  my  cuffs." 

He  looked  frowningly  at  Mrs.  Willers.  She  had 
listened  without  moving,  her  face  rigidly  attentive. 

"Mariposa  didn't  tell  you  what  they'd  been  talking 
about?"  she  asked. 

"No;  she  told  me  nothing.  And  when  I  asked  her 
about  the  screams  she  said  I'd  been  mistaken.  But  I 
hadn't,  Mrs.  Willers.  That  man  had  scared  her  some 
way,  and  she'd  screamed.  She  called  for  Benito  and 
Mrs.  Garcia.  I  heard  her.  And  she's  looked  pale  and 
miserable  ever  since.  What  does  that  blackguard  come 
to  see  her  for,  anyway?  What's  he  after?" 

"Her,"  said  Mrs.  Willers,  solemnly;  "he  wants  to 
marry  her." 


THE   WOMAN   TALKS  375 

"Wants  to  marry  her !  That  foreign  spider !  Well, 
he's  got  a  gall.  Humph ! — " 

Words  of  sufficient  scorn  seemed  to  fail  him.  That 
he  should  be  similarly  aspiring  did  not  at  that  moment 
strike  him  as  reason  for  moderation  in  his  censure  of  a 
rival. 

"And  is  he  trying  to  scare  her  into  marrying  him? 
I  wish  I'd  known  that.  I'd  have  broken  his  neck  in 
the  hall." 

"Don't  you  go  round  breaking  people's  necks,"  said 
Mrs.  Willers,  "but  I'm  glad  you're  in  that  house.  If 
Barry  Essex  is  going  to  try  to  make  her  marry  him  by 
bullying  and  bulldozing  her,  I'm  glad  there's  a  man 
there  to  keep  him  in  his  place.  That's  no  way  to  win 
a  woman,  Mr.  Barren.  I  know,  for  that's  the  way  Wil 
lers  courted  me.  Wouldn't  hear  of  my  saying  no ;  said 
he'd  shoot  himself.  I  knew  even  then  he  wouldn't,  but 
I  didn't  know  but  what  he'd  try  to  wound  himself 
somewhere  where  it  didn't  hurt,  leaving  a  letter  for 
me  that  would  be  published  in  the  morning  paper.  So 
I  married  him  to  get  rid  of  him,  and  then  I  had  to  get 
the  law  in  to  get  rid  of  him  a  second  time.  A  man 
that  badgers  a  woman  into  marrying  him  is  no  good. 
You  can  bank  on  that." 

"Well,"  said  Barron,  "I'm  glad  you've  told  me  this. 
I'll  keep  my  eye  on  Mr.  Essex.  I  was  going  to  the 
mines  next  week,  but  guess  I'll  put  it  off." 

"Do.  But  don't  you  let  on  to  Mariposa  what  I've 
told  you.  She  wouldn't  like  it.  She's  a  proud  girl. 
But  I'll  tell  you,  Mr.  Barron,  she's  a  good  one,  too ; 
one  of  the  best  kind,  and  I  love  her  nearly  as  much 
as  my  own  girl.  But  look!"  glancing  at  an  adjacent 


376  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

clock  with  a  start,  "I  must  be  traveling.  This  stuff's 
got  to  go  in  at  once." 

"Good  by,"  said  Barren,  holding  out  his  hand ;  "it's 
a  good  thing  we  had  this  minute  of  talk." 

"Good  by,"  she  answered,  returning  the  pressure 
with  a  grip  almost  as  manly ;  "it's  been  awfully  good  to 
see  you  again.  I  must  get  a  move  on.  So  long." 

And  they  parted,  Barren  turning  his  face  toward  the 
Garcia  house,  where  he  had  an  engagement  to  take  the 
boys  to  the  beach  at  the  foot  of  Hyde  Street,  and  Mrs. 
Willers  to  The  Trumpet  office. 

Her  walk  did  not  occupy  more  than  fifteen  minutes, 
and  during  that  time  the  anger  roused  by  the  mining 
man's  words  grew  apace.  From  smothered  indigna 
tion  it  passed  to  a  state  of  simmering  passion.  Her 
conscience  heated  it  still  further,  for  it  was  she  who 
had  introduced  Essex  to  Mariposa,  and  in  the  first 
stages  of  their  acquaintance  had  in  a  careless  way  en 
couraged  the  friendship,  thinking  it  would  be  cheerful 
for  the  solitary  girl  to  have  the  occasional  companion 
ship  of  this  clever  and  interesting  man  of  the  world. 
She  had  thoughtlessly  kindled  a  fire  that  might  burn 
far  past  her  power  of  control  and  lead  to  irreparable 
disaster. 

She  inferred  from  Barren's  story  that  Essex  was 
evidently  attempting  to  frighten  Mariposa  into  smiling 
on  his  suit.  The  cowardice  of  the  action  enraged  her, 
for,  though  Mrs.  Willers  had  known  many  men  of 
many  faults,  she  had  counted  no  cowards  among  her 
friends.  Her  point  of  view  was  Western.  A  man 
might  do  many  things  that  offend  Eastern  conventions 
and  retain  her  consideration.  But,  as  she  expressed  it 


THE   WOMAN   TALKS  377 

to  herself  in  the  walk  down  Third  Street,  "He's  got 
to  know  that  in  this  country  they  don't  drag  women 
shrieking  to  the  altar." 

She  ran  up  the  stairs  of  The  Trumpet  building  with 
the  lightness  of  a  girl  of  sixteen.  Ire  gave  wings  to 
her  feet,  and  it  was  ire  as  much  as  the  speed  of  her  as 
cent  that  made  her  catch  her  breath  quickly  at  the  top 
of  the  fourth  flight.  Still,  even  then,  she  might  have 
held  her  indignation  in  check, — years  of  training  in 
expedient  self-control  being  a  powerful  force  in  the 
energetic  business  woman, — had  she  not  caught  a 
glimpse  of  Essex  in  his  den  as  she  passed  the  open 
door. 

He  was  sitting  at  his  desk,  leaning  languidly  back  in 
his  chair,  evidently  thinking.  His  face,  turned  to 
ward  her,  looked  worn  and  hard,  the  lids  drooping 
with  their  air  of  faintly  bored  insolence.  Hearing  the 
rustle  of  her  dress,  he  looked  up  and  saw  her  making 
a  momentary  pause  by  the  doorway.  He  did  not  look 
pleased  at  the  sight  of  her. 

"Ah,  Mrs.  Willers,"  he  said,  leaning  forward  to  pick 
up  his  pen  and  speaking  with  the  crisp  clearness  of 
utterance  certain  people  employ  when  irritated,  "what 
is  it  that  you  want  to  see  me  about?" 

"Nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Willers  abruptly  and  with  bat 
tle  in  her  tone ;  "why  should  I  ?" 

"I  have  not  the  least  idea,"  he  answered,  looking  at 
his  pen,  and  then,  dipping  it  in  the  ink,  "unless  per 
haps  you  want  a  few  hints  for  your  forthcoming  ar 
ticle,  'The  Kind  of  Shoestrings  Worn  by  the  Crowned 
Heads  of  Europe.'  " 

Essex  was  out  of  temper  himself.     When  Mrs.  Wil- 


378  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

lers  interrupted  him  he  had  been  thinking  over  the 
situation  with  Mariposa,  and  it  had  seemed  to  him 
very  cheerless.  His  remark  was  well  calculated  to 
enrage  the  leading  spirit  of  the  woman's  page,  who  was 
as  proud  of  her  weekly  contributions  as  though  they 
had  been  inspired  by  the  genius  of  George  Eliot. 

"Well,"  she  said,  and  her  rouge  became  quite  un 
necessary  in  the  flood  of  natural  color  that  rose  to  her 
face,  "if  I  was  going  to  tackle  that  subject  I  think 
you'd  be  about  the  best  person  to  come  to  for  informa 
tion.  For  if  you  ever  have  had  anything  to  do  with 
crowned  heads  it's  been  as  their  bootblack." 

Essex  was  startled  by  the  stinging  malice  revealed 
in  this  remark.  He  swung  round  on  his  swivel  chair 
and  sat  facing  his  antagonist,  making  no  attempt  to 
rise,  although  she  entered  the  room.  As  he  saw  her 
face  in  the  light  of  the  window  he  realized  that,  for 
the  first  time,  he  saw  the  woman  stirred  out  of  her 
carefully  acquired  professional  calm. 

As  she  entered  she  pushed  the  door  to  behind  her, 
and,  taking  the  chair  beside  the  desk,  sat  down. 

"Mr.  Essex,"  she  said,  "I  want  a  word  with  you." 

"Any  number,"  he  answered  with  ironical  politeness. 
"Do  you  wish  the  history  of  my  connection  with  the 
crowned  heads  as  court  bootblack?" 

"No,"  she  said.  "I  want  to  know  what  business 
you've  got  to  go  to  Mrs.  Garcia's  boarding-house  and 
frighten  one  of  the  ladies  living  there  ?" 

An  instantaneous  change  passed  over  Essex's  face. 
His  eyes  seemed  suddenly  to  grow  veiled  as  they  nar 
rowed  to  a  cold,  non-committal  slit.  His  mouth  hard- 


THE   WOMAN   TALKS  379 

ened.  Mrs.  Willers  saw  the  muscles  of  his  cheeks 
tighten. 

"Really,"  he  said,  "this  sudden  interest  in  me  is  quite 
flattering.  I  hardly  know  what  to  say." 

He  spoke  to  gain  time,  for  he  was  amazed  and  en 
raged.  Mariposa  had  evidently  made  a  confidante  of 
Mrs.  Willers,  and  he  knew  that  Mrs.  Willers  was  high 
in  favor  with  Winslow  Shackleton  and  his  mother. 

"In  this  country,  Mr.  Essex,"  Airs.  Willers  went  on, 
clenching  her  hands  in  her  lap,  for  they  trembled  with 
her  indignation,  "men  don't  scare  and  browbeat  young 
women  who  don't  happen  to  have  the  good  taste  to 
favor  them.  When  a  man  gets  the  mitten  he  knows 
enough  to  get  out." 

"Very  clever  of  him,  no  doubt,"  he  murmured  with 
unshaken  suavity. 

"If  you're  going  to  live  here  you've  got  to  live  by 
our  laws.  You've  got  to  do  as  the  Romans  do.  And 
take  my  word  for  it,  young  man,  the  Romans  don't 
approve  of  nagging  and  scaring  a  woman  into  mar 
riage." 

"No?"  he  answered  with  a  blandly  questioning  in 
flection,  "these  are  interesting  facts  in  local  manners 
and  customs.  I'm  sure  they'd  be  of  value  to  some  one 
who  was  making  a  special  study  of  the  subject.  Per 
sonally  I  am  not  deeply  interested  in  the  California 
aborigines.  Even  the  original  and  charming  specimen 
now  before  me  would  oblige  me  greatly  by  withdraw 
ing.  It  is  now" — looking  at  the  clock  that  stood  on 
the  side  of  the  desk — "half-past  two,  and  my  time  is 
valuable,  my  dear  Mrs.  Willers." 


380  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Mrs.  Willers  rose  to  her  feet,  burning  with  rage. 

"Put  me  off  any  way  you  like,"  she  said,  "and  be  as 
fresh  and  smart  as  you  know  how.  But  I  tell  you, 
young  man,  this  has  got  to  stop.  That  girl's  got  no 
one  belonging  to  her  here.  But  don't  imagine  from 
that  you  can  have  the  field  to  yourself  and  go  on  per 
secuting  her.  No — this  is  not  France  nor  Spain,  nor 
any  other  old  monarchy,  where  a  woman  didn't  have 
any  more  to  say  about  herself  than  a  mule,  or  a  pet 
parrot.  No,  sir.  You've  run  up  against  the  wrong 
proposition  if  you  think  you  can  scare  a  woman  into 
marrying  you  in  California  in  the  nineteenth  century." 

Essex  rose  from  his  chair.     He  was  pale. 

"Look  here,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice,  "I've  had  enough 
of  this.  By  what  right,  I'd  like  to  know,  do  you  dare 
to  dictate  to  me  or  interfere  in  my  acquaintance  with 
another  lady  ?" 

"I'd  dare  more  than  that,  Barry  Essex,"  said  Mrs. 
Willers,  with  her  rouge  standing  out  red  on  her  white 
face,  "to  save  that  girl  from  a  man  like  you.  I  don't 
know  what  I  wouldn't  dare.  But  I'm  a  good  fighter 
when  my  blood's  up,  and  I'll  fight  you  on  this  point 
till  one  or  the  other  of  us  drops." 

She  saw  Essex's  nostrils  fan  softly  in  and  out.  His 
cheek-bones  looked  prominent. 

"Will  you  kindly  leave  this  room?"  he  said  in  a  sup 
pressed  voice. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  "I'm  going  now.  But  under 
stand  that  I'm  making  no  idle  threats.  And  if  this 
persecution  goes  on  I'll  tell  Winslow  Shackleton  of 
the  way  you're  acting  to  a  friend  of  his  and  a  pro 
tegee  of  his  mother's." 


THE   WOMAN    TALKS  381 

She  was  at  the  door  and  had  the  handle  in  her  hand. 
Essex  turned  on  her  a  face  of  livid  malignity. 

"Really,  Mrs.  Willers,"  he  said,  "I  had  no  idea  you 
were  entitled  to  speak  for  Winslow  Shackleton.  I 
congratulate  you." 

For  a  moment  of  blind  rage  Mrs.  Willers  neither 
spoke  nor  moved.  Then  she  felt  the  door-handle  turn 
under  her  hand  and  the  door  push  inward.  She  me 
chanically  stepped  to  one  side,  as  it  opened,  and  the 
office  boy  intruded  his  head. 

"I  knocked  here  twict,  and  y'aint  answered,"  he 
said  apologetically.  "There's  a  man  to  see  you,  Mr. 
Essex,  what  says  he's  got  something  to  say  about  a 
new  kind  of  balloon." 

"Show  him  in,"  said  Essex,  "and — oh — ah — Jack, 
show  Mrs.  Willers  out." 

Jack  gaped  at  this  curious  order.  Mrs.  Willers 
brushed  past  him  and  walked  up  the  hall  to  her  own 
cubby-hole.  She  was  compassed  in  a  lurid  mist  of 
fury,  and  through  this  she  felt  dimly  that  she  had  done 
no  good. 

"Did  getting  into  a  rage  ever  do  any  good?"  she 
thought  desperately,  as  she  sank  into  her  desk  chair. 

Her  article  lay  unnoticed  and  forgotten  by  her 
side,  while  she  sat  staring  at  her  scattered  papers,  try 
ing  to  decide  through  the  storm  that  still  shook  her 
whether  she  had  not  done  well  in  throwing  down  her 
gage  in  defense  of  her  friend. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE    MEETING   IN   THE   RAIN 
"A  time  to  love  and  a  time  to  hate." 

— ECCLESIASTES. 

It  was  the  afternoon  of  Edna  Willers'  music  lesson. 
Over  a  week  had  elapsed  since  Mariposa's  interview 
with  Essex,  yet  to-day,  as  she  stood  at  her  window 
looking  out  at  the  threatening  sky,  her  fears  of  him 
were  as  active  as  ever.  Though  he  had  made  no  fur 
ther  sign,  her  woman's  intuitions  warned  her  that  this 
was  but  a  temporary  lull  in  his  campaign.  She  was 
living  under  an  exhausting  tension.  She  went  out 
with  the  fear  of  meeting  him  driving  her  into  unfre 
quented  side  streets,  and  returned,  her  eyes  straining 
through  the  foliage  of  the  pepper-tree  to  watch  for  a 
light  in  the  parlor  windows. 

This  afternoon,  standing  at  the  window  drumming 
on  the  pane  with  her  finger-tips,  she  looked  at  the 
dun,  low-hanging  clouds,  and  thought  with  shrinking 
of  her  walk  to  Sutter  Street,  at  any  turn  of  which  she 
might  meet  him. 

"Well,  and  if  I  do?"  she  said  to  herself,  trying  to 
whip  up  her  dwindling  courage,  "he  can't  do  any  more 
than  threaten  me  with  telling  all  he  knows.  He  can't 
make  a  scene  on  the  street  proposing  to  me." 

She  felt  somewhat  cheered  by  these  assurances  and 
382 


THE   MEETING   IN   THE   RAIN        383- 

began  putting  on  her  outdoor  things.  The  day  was 
darkening  curiously  early,  she  thought,  for,  though  it 
was  not  yet  four,  the  long  mirror,  with  its  top-heavy 
gold  ornaments,  gave  back  but  a  dim  reflection  of  her. 
There  had  been  fine  weather  for  two  weeks,  and  now 
rain  was  coming.  She  put  on  her  long  cloak,  the  en 
veloping  "circular"  of  the  mode  which  fastened  at  the 
throat  with  a  metal  clasp,  and  took  her  umbrella,  a 
black  cotton  one,  which  seemed  to  her  quite  elegant 
enough  for  a  humble  teacher  of  music.  A  small  black 
bonnet,  trimmed  with  loops  of  ribbon,  crowned  her 
head  and  showed  her  rich  hair,  rippling  loosely  back 
from  her  forehead. 

The  air  on  the  outside  was  warm  and  at  the  same 
time  was  softly  and  stilly  humid.  There  was  not  a 
breath  of  wind,  and  in  this  motionless,  tepid  atmos 
phere  the  gardens  exhaled  moist  earth-odors  as  if 
breathing  out  their  strength  in  panting  expectation  of 
the  rain.  From  the  high  places  of  the  city  one  could 
see  the  bay,  flat  and  oily,  with  its  surrounding  hills 
and  its  circular  sweep  of  houses,  a  picture  in  shaded 
grays.  The  smoke,  trailing  lazily  upward,  was  the 
palest  tint  in  this  study  in  monochrome,  while  the  pall 
of  the  sky,  leaden  and  lowering,  was  the  darkest.  A 
faint  light  diffused  itself  from  the  rim  of  sky,  visible 
round  the  edges  of  the  pall,  and  cast  an  unearthly 
yellowish  gleam  on  people's  faces. 

Mariposa  walked  rapidly  downward  from  street  to 
street.  She  kept  a  furtive  lookout  for  the  well-known 
figure  in  its  long  overcoat  and  high  hat,  but  saw  no 
one,  and  her  troubled  heart-beats  began  to  moderate. 
The  damp  air  on  her  face  refreshed  her.  She  had  been 


384  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

keeping  in  the  house  too  much  of  late,  and  did  not 
realize  that  this  was  still  further  irritating  her  al 
ready  jangled  nerves.  The  angle  of  the  building  in 
which  Mrs.  Willers  housed  herself  broke  on  her  view 
just  as  the  first  sullen  drops  of  rain  began  to  spot  the 
pavement — slow,  reluctant  drops,  falling  far  apart. 

The  music  lesson  had  hardly  begun  when  the  rain 
was  lashing  the  window  and  pouring  down  the  panes 
in  fury.  Darkness  fell  with  it.  The  night  seemed  to 
drop  on  the  city  in  an  instant,  coming  with  a  whirling 
rush  of  wind  and  falling  waters.  The  housewifely 
little  Edna  drew  the  curtains  and  lit  the  gas,  saying 
as  she  settled  back  on  her  music-stool : 

"You'd  better  stay  to  dinner  with  me,  Mariposa. 
Mommer  won't  be  home  till  late  because  it's  Wednes 
day  and  the  back  part  of  the  woman's  page  goes  to 
press." 

"Oh,  I  couldn't  stay  to-night,"  said  Mariposa  hur 
riedly,  affrighted  by  the  thought  of  the  walk  home 
alone  at  ten  o'clock,  which  she  had  often  before  taken 
without  a  tremor;  "I  must  go  quite  soon.  I  forgot  it 
was  the  day  when  the  back  sheet  goes  to  press.  Go  on, 
Edna,  it  will  be  like  the  middle  of  the  night  by  the 
time  we  finish." 

This  was  indeed  the  case.  When  the  lesson  was 
over,  the  evening  outside  was  shrouded  in  a  midnight 
darkness  to  an  accompaniment  of  roaring  rain.  It  was 
a  torrential  downpour.  The  two  girls,  peering  out 
into  the  street,  could  see  by  the  blurred  rays  of  the 
lamps  a  swimming  highway,  down  which  a  car  dashed 
at  intervals,  spattering  the  blackness  with  the  broken 
lights  of  its  windows.  Despite  the  child's  urgings 


THE   MEETING   IN   THE   RAIN        385 

to  remain,  Mariposa  insisted  on  going.  She  was  well 
prepared  for  wet  she  said,  folding  her  circular  about 
her  and  removing  the  elastic  band  that  held  together 
her  disreputable  umbrella. 

But  she  did  not  realize  the  force  of  the  storm  till 
she  found  herself  in  the  street.  By  keeping  in  the  lee 
of  the  houses  on  the  right-hand  side,  she  could  escape 
the  full  fury  of  the  wind,  and  she  began  slowly  making 
her  way  upward. 

She  had  gone  some  distance  when  the  roll  of  music 
she  carried  slipped  from  under  her  arm  and  fell  into 
water  and  darkness.  She  groped  for  it,  clutched  its 
saturated  cover,  and  brought  it  up  dripping.  The 
music  was  of  value  to  her,  and  she  moved  forward  to 
where  the  light  of  an  uncurtained  window  cut  the 
darkness,  revealing  the  top  of  a  wall.  Here  she 
rested  the  roll  and  tried  to  wipe  it  dry  with  her  hand 
kerchief.  Her  face,  down-bent  and  earnest,  was  dis 
tinctly  visible  in  the  shaft  of  light.  A  man,  standing 
opposite,  who  had  been  patrolling  these  streets  for  the 
past  hour,  saw  it,  gave  a  smothered  exclamation,  and 
crossed  the  street.  He  was  at  her  side  before  she  saw 
him. 

Several  hours  earlier  Essex  had  been  passing  down 
a  thoroughfare  in  that  neighborhood,  when  he  had  met 
Benito,  slowly  wending  his  (way  homeward  from  school. 
The  child  recognized  him  and  smiled,  and  with  the 
smile,  Essex  recollected  the  face  and  saw  that  fate  was 
still  on  his  side. 

Pressing  a  quarter  into  Benito's  readily  extended 
palm,  he  had  inquired  if  the  boy  knew  where  Miss 
Moreau  was. 


386  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"Mariposa  ?"  said  Benito,  with  easy  familiarity ; 
"she's  at  Mrs.  Willers'  giving  Edna  her  lesson.  This 
is  Wednesday,  ain't  it?  Well,  Edna  gets  her  lesson  on 
Wednesday  from  half-past  four  till  half-past  five,  and 
so  that's  where  Mariposa  is.  But  she's  generally  late 
'cause  she  stays  and  talks  to  Mrs.  Willers." 

At  five  o'clock,  sheltered  by  the  dripping  dark,  Essex 
began  his  furtive  watch  of  the  streets  along  which  she 
might  pass.  He  knew  that  every  day  was  precious  to 
him  now,  with  Mrs.  Willers  among  his  enemies  and 
ready  to  enlist  Winslow  Shackleton  against  him.  Here 
was  an  opportunity  to  see  the  girl,  better  than  the 
parlor  of  the  Garcia  house  offered,  with  its  officious 
boarders.  There  was  absolute  seclusion  in  these  black 
and  rain-swept  streets. 

He  had  been  prowling  about  for  an  hour  when  he 
finally  saw  her.  A  dozen  times  he  had  cursed  under 
his  breath  fearing  she  had  escaped  him ;  now  his  relief 
was  such  that  he  ran  toward  her,  and  with  a  rough 
hand  swept  aside  her  umbrella.  In  the  clear  light  of 
the  uncurtained  pane  she  saw  his  face,  and  shrank  back 
against  the  wall  as  if  she  had  been  struck.  Then  a  sec 
ond  impulse  seized  her  and  she  tried  to  dash  past  him. 
He  seemed  prepared  for  this  and  caught  her  by  the 
arm  through  her  cloak,  swinging  her  violently  back 
to  her  place  against  the  wall. 

Keeping  his  grip  on  her  he  said,  trying  to  smile : 

"What  are  you  afraid  of?    Don't  you  know  me?" 

"Let  me  go,"  she  said,  struggling,  "you're  hurting 
me." 

"I  don't  want  to  hurt  you,"  he  answered,  "but  I 


THE   MEETING   IN   THE   RAIN        387 

mean  to  keep  you  for  a  moment.  I  want  to  talk  to 
you.  And  I'm  going  to  talk  to  you." 

"I  won't  listen  to  you.  Let  me  go  at  once.  How 
cowardly  to  hold  me  in  this  way  against  my  will !" 

She  tried  again  to  wrench  her  arm  out  of  his  grasp, 
but  he  held  her  like  a  vise.  Her  resistance  of  him  and 
the  repugnance  in  face  and  voice  maddened  him.  He 
felt  for  a  moment  that  he  would  like  to  batter  her 
against  the  wall. 

"There's  no  use  trying  to  get  away,  and  telling  me 
how  much  you  hate  me.  I've  got  you  here  at  last.  I'll 
not  let  you  go  till  I've  had  my  say." 

He  put  his  face  down  under  the  tent  of  her  umbrella 
and  gazed  at  her  with  menacing  eyes  and  tight  lips. 
In  the  light  of  the  window  and  against  the  inky  black 
ness  around  them  the  two  faces  were  distinct  as  cameos 
hung  on  a  velvet  background.  He  saw  the  whiteness 
of  her  chin  on  the  bow  beneath  it,  and  her  mouth,  with 
the  lips  that  all  the  anger  in  the  world  could  not  make 
hard  or  unlovely. 

"You've  got  to  listen  to  me,"  he  said,  shaking  her 
arm  as  if  trying  to  shake  some  passion  into  the  set 
antagonism  of  her  face ;  "you've  got  to  be  my  wife." 

She  suddenly  seized 'her  umbrella  and,  turning  it 
toward  him,  pressed  it  down  between  them.  The  ac 
tion  was  so  quick  and  unexpected  that  the  man  did 
not  move  back,  and  the  ferrule  striking  him  on  the 
cheek,  furrowed  a  long  scratch  on  the  smooth  skin.  A 
drop  of  blood  rose  to  the  surface. 

With  an  oath  he  seized  the  umbrella  and,  tearing  it 
from  her  grasp,  sent  it  flying  into  the  street.  Here  the 


388  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

wind  snatched  it,  and  its  inverted  shape,  like  a  large 
black  mushroom,  went  sweeping  forward,  tilted  and 
already  half  full  of  water,  before  the  angry  gusts. 

Essex  tried  to  keep  his  own  over  her,  still  retaining 
his  hold  on  her  arm. 

"Come,  be  reasonable,"  he  said;  "there's  no  use 
angering  me  for  nothing.  This  is  a  wet  place  for 
lovers  to  have  meetings.  Give  me  my  answer,  and  I 
swear  I'll  not  detain  you.  When  will  you  marry  me?" 

"What's  the  good  of  talking  that  way?  You  know 
perfectly  what  I'll  say.  It  will  always  be  the  same." 

"I'm  not  so  sure  of  that.  I've  got  something  to  say 
that  may  make  you  change  your  mind." 

He  pushed  the  umbrella  back  that  the  light  might 
fall  directly  on  her.  It  fell  on  him  also.  She  saw  his 
face  under  the  brim  of  his  soaked  hat,  shining  with 
rain,  pallidly  sinister,  the  trickle  of  blood  on  one  cheek. 

"Nothing  that  you  can  say  will  ever  make  me  change 
my  mind.  Mr.  Essex,  I  am  wet  and  tired ;  won't  you, 
please,  let  me  go?" 

She  tried  to  eliminate  dislike  and  fear  from  her 
voice  and  spoke  with  a  gentleness  that  she  hoped  would 
soften  him.  He  heard  it  with  a  thrill ;  but  it  had  an 
exactly  contrary  effect  to  what  she  had  desired. 

"I  would  like  never  to  let  you  go.  Just  to  hold  you 
here  and  look  at  you.  Mariposa,  you  don't  know  what 
this  love  is  I  have  for  you.  It  grows  with  absence,  and 
then  when  I  see  you  it  grows  again  with  the  sight  of 
you.  It's  eating  into  me  like  a  poison.  I  can't  get 
away  from  it.  You  loved  me  once,  'why  have  you 
changed?  What  has  come  over  you  to  take  all  that 
out  of  you?  Is  it  because  I  made  a  foolish  mistake? 


THE   MEETING   IN   THE  RAIN        389 

I'm  ready  to  do  anything  you  suggest — crawl  in  the 
dust,  kneel  now  in  the  rain,  and  ask  you  to  forgive  it. 
Don't  be  hard  and  revengeful.  It's  not  like  you.  Be 
kind,  be  merciful  to  a  man  who,  if  he  said  what  hurt 
you,  has  repented  it  with  all  his  soul  ever  since.  I 
am  ready  to  give  you  my  whole  life  to  make  amends. 
Say  you  forgive  me.  Say  you  love  me." 

He  was  speaking  the  truth.  Passion  had  outrun 
cupidity.  Mariposa,  poor  or  rich,  had  become  the  end 
and  aim  of  his  existence. 

"It's  not  a  question  of  forgiveness,"  she  answered, 
seeing  he  still  persisted  in  the  thought  that  she  was 
hiding  her  love  from  wounded  pride ;  "it's  not  a  ques 
tion  of  love.  I — I — don't  like  you.  Can't  you  under 
stand  that  ?  I  don't  like  you." 

"It's  not  true — it's  not  true,"  he  vociferated.  "You 
love  me — say  you  do." 

He  shook  her  by  the  arm  as  though  to  shake  the 
words  out  of  her  reluctant  lips.  The  brutal  roughness 
of  the  action  spurred  her  from  fear  to  indignation. 

"It's  not  love.  It's  not  even  hate.  It's  just  repul 
sion  and  dislike.  I  can't  bear  to  look  at  you,  or  have 
you  come  near  me,  and  to  have  you  hold  me,  as  you're 
doing  now,  is  as  if  some  horrible  thing,  like  a  spider 
or  a  snake,  was  crawling  on  me." 

Amid  the  rustling  and  the  splashing  of  the  rain  they 
again  looked  at  each  other  for  a  fierce,  pallid  moment. 
Another  drop  of  blood  on  his  cheek  detached  itself 
and  ran  down.  He  had  no  free  hand  with  which  to 
wipe  it  off. 

"Yet  you're  going  to  marry  me,"  he  said  softly. 

"I've  heard  enough  of  this,"  she  cried.    "I'm  not  go- 


390  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

ing  to  stand  here  talking  to  a  madman.  It's  early  yet 
and  these  houses  are  full  of  people.  If  I  give  one  cry 
every  window  will  go  up.  I  don't  want  to  make  a 
scene  here  on  the  street,  but  if  you  detain  me  any 
longer  talking  in  this  crazy  way,  that's  what  I'll  have 
to  do." 

"Just  wait  one  moment  before  you  take  such  des 
perate  measures.  I  want  to  ask  a  question  before  you 
call  out  the  neighborhood  to  protect  you.  How  do 
you  think  the  story  of  your  mother's  and  father's  early 
history  will  look  on  the  front  page  of  The  Era?" 

In  the  light  of  the  window  that  fell  across  them  both 
he  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  her  face  freeze  into 
horrified  amazement. 

"It  will  be  the  greatest  scoop  The  Era's  had  since 
The  Trumpet  became  Shackleton's  property.  There's 
not  a  soul  here  that  even  suspects  it.  It  will  be  a  bomb 
shell  to  the  city,  involving  people  of  the  highest  posi 
tion,  like  the  Shackletons,  and  people  of  the  most  un 
questioned  respectability,  like  the  Moreaus.  Oh — it 
will  be  good  reading!" 

Her  eyes,  fastened  on  him,  were  full  of  anguish,  but 
it  had  not  bewildered  her.  In  the  stress  of  the  moment 
her  mind  remained  clear  and  active. 

"Is  the  world  interested  in  stories  of  the  dead  ?"  she 
heard  herself  saying  in  a  cold  voice. 

"Everybody's  interested  in  scandals.  And  what  a 
scandal  it  is!  How  people  will  smack  their  lips  over 
it !  Shackleton  a  Mormon,  and  you  his  only  legitimate 
child.  Your  mother  and  father,  that  all  the  world  hon 
ored,  common  free-lovers.  Your  mother  sold  to  your 
father  for  a  pair  of  horses,  and  living  with  him  in  a 


THE   MEETING   IN   THE   RAIN        391 

cabin  in  the  Sierra  for  six  months  before  they  even 
attempted  to  straighten  things  out  by  a  bogus  marriage 
ceremony.  Why,  it's  a  splendid  story !  The  Era's  had 
nothing  with  as  much  ginger  as  that  for  months  !" 

"And  who'd  believe  you?  Who  are  you,  to  know 
about  the  early  histories  of  the  pioneer  families? 
Who'd  believe  the  words  of  a  man  who  comes  from 
nobody  knows  where,  whose  very  name  people  doubt? 
If  Mrs.  Shackleton  and  I  deny  the  truth  of  your  story, 
who'd  believe  you  then?" 

"You  forget  that  I  have  under  my  hand  the  man 
who  was  witness  of  the  transaction  whereby  Moreau 
bought  your  mother  from  Shackleton  for  a  pair  of 
horses." 

"A  drunken  thief!  He  stole  all  my  father  had  and 
ran  away.  Can  his  word  carry  the  same  weight  as 
mine  to  whose  interest  it  would  be  to  prove  myself 
Shackleton's  daughter?  No.  The  only  real  proof  in 
existence  is  the  marriage  certificate.  And  I  have  that. 
And  so  long  as  I  have  that  any  story  you  choose  to 
publish  I  can  get  up  and  deny." 

He  knew  she  was  right.  Even  with  Harney  his 
story  would  be  discredited,  unbacked  by  the  one  piece 
of  genuine  evidence  of  the  first  marriage — the  certifi 
cate  which  she  possessed.  Her  unexpected  recognition 
of  the  point  staggered  him.  He  had  thought  to  break 
her  resistance  by  threats  which  even  to  him  seemed 
shameful,  and  only  excusable  because  of  the  stress  he 
found  himself  in.  Now  he  saw  her  as  defiantly  uncon- 
quered  as  ever.  In  his  rage  he  pushed  her  back  against 
the  wall,  crying  at  her : 

"Deny,  deny  all  you  like !    Whether  you  deny  or  not, 


392  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

the  thing  will  have  been  said.  Next  Sunday  the  whole 
city,  the  whole  state  will  be  reading  it — how  you're 
Shackleton's  daughter  and  your  mother  was  Dan 
Moreau's  mistress.  But  say  one  word — one  little  word 
to  me,  and  not  a  syllable  will  be  written,  not  a  whisper 
spoken.  On  one  side  there's  happiness  and  luxury  and 
love,  and  on  the  other  disgrace  and  poverty — not  your 
disgrace  alone,  but  your  father's,  your  mother's — " 

With  a  cry  of  rage  and  despair  Mariposa  tried  to 
tear  herself  from  him.  Nature  aided  her,  for  at  the 
same  moment  a  savage  gust  of  wind  seized  the  um 
brella  and  wrenched  it  this  way  and  that.  Instinctively 
he  loosened  his  hold  on  her  to  grasp  it,  and  in  that  one 
moment  she  tore  herself  away  from  him.  He  gripped 
at  the  flapping  wing  of  her  cloak,  and  caught  it.  But 
the  strain  was  too  much  for  the  cheap  metal  clasp, 
which  broke,  and  Mariposa  slipped  out  of  it  and  flew 
into  the  fury  of  the  rain,  leaving  the  cloak  in  his  hand. 

The  roar  of  many  waters  and  the  shouting  of  the 
wind  obliterated  the  sound  of  her  flying  feet.  The 
darkness,  shot  through  with  the  blurred  faces  of  lamps 
or  the  long  rays  from  an  occasional  uncurtained  pane, 
in  a  moment  absorbed  her  black  figure.  Essex  stood 
motionless,  stunned  at  the  suddenness  of  her  escape, 
the  sodden  cloak  trailing  from  his  hand.  Then  shaken 
out  of  all  reason  by  rage,  not  knowing  what  he  in 
tended  doing,  he  started  in  pursuit. 

She  feared  this  and  her  burst  of  bravery  was  ex 
hausted.  As  she  ran  up  the  steep  street  having  only 
the  darkness  to  hide  her,  her  heart  seemed  shriveled 
with  the  fear  of  him. 


THE   MEETING   IN   THE   RAIN        393 

Suddenly  she  heard  the  thud  of  his  feet  behind  her. 
An  agony  of  fright  seized  her.  The  Garcia  house  was 
at  least  two  blocks  farther  on,  and  she  knew  he  would 
overtake  her  before  then.  A  black  doorway  with  a 
huddle  of  little  trees,  formless  and  dark  now,  loomed 
close  by,  and  toward  this  she  darted,  crouching  down 
among  the  small  wet  trunks  of  the  shrubs  and  parting 
their  foliage  with  shaking  hands. 

There  was  a  lamp  not  far  off  and  in  its  rays  she 
saw  him  running  up,  still  holding  the  cloak  in  a  black 
bunch  over  his  arm.  He  stopped,  just  beyond  where 
she  cowered,  and  looked  irresolutely  up  and  down. 
The  lamplight  fell  on  his  face,  and  in  certain  angles 
she  saw  it  plainly,  pale  and  glistening  with  moisture, 
all  keen  and  alert  with  a  look  of  attentive  cunning. 
He  moved  his  head  this  way  and  that,  evidently  trust 
ing  more  to  hearing  than  to  sight.  His  eyes,  no  longer 
half  veiled  in  cold  indifference,  swept  her  hiding-place 
with  the  preoccupation  of  one  who  listens  intently.  He- 
looked  to  her  like  some  thwarted  animal  barkening  for 
the  steps  of  his  prey.  Her  terror  grew  with  the  sight 
of  him.  She  thought  if  he  had  approached  the  bushes 
she  would  have  swooned  before  he  reached  them. 

Presently  he  turned  and  went  down  the  hill.  In  the 
pause  his  reason  had  reasserted  itself,  and  he  felt  that 
to  hound  her  down  with  more  threats  and  reproaches 
was  useless  folly. 

But,  with  her,  reason  and  judgment  were  hopelessly 
submerged  by  terror.  She  crept  out  from  among  the 
shrubs  with  white  face  and  trembling  limbs,  and  fled 
up  the  hill  in  a  wild,  breathless  race,  hearing  Essex  in 


394  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

every  sound.  The  rain  had  dripped  on  her  through 
the  bushes,  and  these  last  two  blocks  under  its  unre 
strained  fury  soaked  her  to  the  skin. 

Her  haunting  terror  did  not  leave  her  till  she  had 
rushed  up  the  stairs  and  opened  the  door  of  the  glass 
porch.  She  was  fumbling  in  her  pocket  for  the  latch 
key,  when  the  inner  door  was  opened  and  Barren  stood 
in  the  aperture,  the  lighted  hall  behind  him. 

"What  on  earth  has  delayed  you?"  he  said  sharply. 
"They're  all  at  supper.  I  was  just  going  down  to  Mrs. 
Willers'  to  see  what  was  keeping  you." 

She  stumbled  in  at  the  door,  and  stood  in  the  reveal 
ing  light  of  the  hall,  for  the  moment  unable  to  answer, 
panting  and  drenched. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  said  suddenly  in  a  differ 
ent  tone ;  and  quickly  stepping  back  he  shut  the  door 
into  the  dining-room.  "Has  anything  happened  ?" 

"I'm — only — only — frightened,"  she  gasped  between 
broken  breaths.  "Something  frightened  me." 

She  reeled  and  caught  against  the  door-post. 

"I'm  all  wet,"  she  whispered  with  white  lips ;  "don't 
let  them  know.  I  don't  want  any  dinner." 

He  put  his  arm  round  her  and  drew  her  toward  the 
stairs.  He  could  feel  her  trembling  like  a  person  with 
an  ague  and  her  saturated  clothes  left  rillets  along  the 
stairs. 

When  they  were  half  way  up  he  said : 

"How  did  you  get  so  wet?  Have  you  been  out  in 
this  storm  without  an  umbrella  ?" 

"I  lost  it,"  she  whispered. 

"Lost  it?"  he  replied.    "Where's  your  cloak?" 


THE   MEETING   IN   THE  RAIN       395 

"Somewhere,"  she  said  vaguely;  "somewhere  in  the 
street.  I  lost  that,  too." 

They  were  at  the  top  of  the  stairs.  She  suddenly 
turned  toward  him  and  pressed  her  face  into  his  shoul 
der,  trembling  like  a  terrified  animal. 

"I'm  frightened,"  she  whispered.  "Don't  tell  them 
downstairs.  I'll  tell  you  to-morrow.  Don't  ask  me 
anything  to-night." 

He  took  her  into  her  room  and  placed  her  in  an  arm 
chair  by  the  fireplace.  He  lit  the  gas  and  drew  the 
curtains,  and  then  knelt  by  the  hearth  to  kindle  the 
fire,  saying  nothing  and  apparently  taking  little  notice 
of  her.  She  sat  dully  watching  him,  her  hands  in  her 
lap,  the  water  running  off  her  skirts  along  the  carpet. 

When  he  had  lit  the  fire  he  said : 

"Now,  I'll  go,  and  you  take  off  your  things.  I'll 
bring  you  up  your  supper  in  half  an  hour.  Be  quick, 
you're  soaking.  I'll  tell  them  downstairs  you're  too 
tired  to  come  down." 

He  went  out,  softly  closing  the  door.  She  sat  on  in 
her  wet  clothes,  feeling  the  growing  warmth  of  the 
flames  on  her  face  and  hands.  She  seemed  to  fall  into 
a  lethargy  of  exhaustion  and  sat  thus  motionless,  the 
water  running  unheeded  on  the  carpet,  frissons  of  cold 
occasionally  shaking  her,  till  a  knock  at  the  door  roused 
her.  Then  she  suddenly  remembered  Barren  and  his 
command  to  take  off  her  wet  clothes.  She  had  them 
on  still  and  he  would  be  angry. 

"Put  it  down  on  the  chair  outside,"  she  called 
through  the  door ;  "I'm  not  ready." 

"Won't  you  open  the  door  and  take  this  whisky  and 
drink  it  at  once  ?"  came  his  answer. 


396  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE- 

She  opened  the  door  a  crack  and,  putting  her  hand 
through  the  aperture,  took  the  glass  with  the  whisky. 

"Are  you  warm  and  dry  ?"  he  said ;  all  she  could  see 
of  him  was  his  big  hand  clasped  round  the  glass. 

"Yes,  quite,"  she  answered,  though  she  felt  her  skin 
quivering  with  cold  against  the  damp  garments  that 
seemed  glued  to  it. 

"Well,  drink  this  now,  right  off.  And  listen — "  as 
the  door  began  to  close — "if  you  get  nervous  or  any 
thing  just  come  to  your  door  and  call  me.  I'll  leave 
mine  open,  and  I'm  a  very  light  sleeper." 

Then  before  she  could  answer  she  felt  the  door 
handle  pulled  from  the  outside  and  the  door  was  sh,ut. 

She  hastily  took  off  her  things  and  put  on  dry  ones, 
and  then  shrugged  herself  into  the  thick  wrapper  of 
black  and  white  that  had  been  her  mother's.  Even  her 
hair  was  wet,  she  found  out  as  she  undressed,  and  she 
mechanically  undid  it  and  shook  the  damp  locks  loose 
on  her  shoulders.  She  felt  penetrated  with  cold,  and 
still  overmastered  by  fear.  Every  gust  that  made  the 
long  limb  of  the  pepper-tree  grate  against  the  balcony 
roof  caused  her  heart  to  leap.  When  she  opened  the 
door  to  get  her  supper,  the  glow  of  light  that  fell  from 
Barren's  room,  across  the  hallway,  came  to  her  with  a 
hail  of  friendship  and  life.  She  stood  listening,  and 
heard  the  creak  of  his  rocking-chair,  then  smelt  the 
whiff  of  a  cigar.  He  was  close  to  her.  She  shut  the 
door,  feeling  her  terrors  allayed. 

She  picked  at  her  supper,  but  soon  set  the  tray  on 
the  center-table  and  took  the  easy-chair  before  the  fire. 
The  sense  of  physical  cold  was  passing  off,  but  the  in 
describable  oppression  and  apprehension  remained. 


THE    MEETING    IN   THE   RAIN        397 

She  did  not  know  exactly  what  she  dreaded,  but  she 
felt  in  some  vague  way  that  she  would  be  safer  sitting 
thus  clad  and  wakeful  before  the  fire  than  sleeping  in 
her  bed.  Once  or  twice,  as  the  hours  passed  and  her 
fears  strengthened  in  the  silence  and  mystery  of  the 
night,  she  crept  to  her  door,  and  opening  it,  looked  up 
the  hall.  The  square  of  light  was  still  there,  the  scent 
of  the  cigar  pungent  on  the  air.  She  shut  the  door 
softly,  each  time  feeling  soothed  as  by  the  pressure  of 
a  strong,  loving  hand. 

Sometime  toward  the  middle  of  the  night  the  heavi 
ness  of  sleep  came  on  her,  and  though  she  fought 
against  it,  feeling  that  the  safety  she  was  struggling  to 
maintain  against  mysterious  menace  was  only  to  be 
preserved  by  wakefulness,  Nature  overcame  her. 
Curled  in  her  chair  before  the  crumbling  fire,  she 
finally  slept — the  deep,  motionless  sleep  of  physical 
and  mental  exhaustion. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
A  NIGHT'S  WORK 

"Have  is  have,  however  men  may  catch." 

— SHAKESPEARE. 

Under  cover  of  the  darkness  Essex  hurried  down  the 
street  toward  where  the  city  passed  from  a  place  of 
homes  to  a  business  mart.  He  had  at  first  no  fixed  idea 
of  a  goal,  but  after  a  few  moments'  rapid  march,  real 
ized  that  habit  was  taking  him  in  the  direction  of  Ber- 
trand's.  An  illumined  clock  face  shining  on  him  over 
the  roofs  told  him  it  was  some  time  past  his  dinner 
hour.  He  obeyed  his  instinct  and  bent  his  steps 
toward  the  restaurant,  throwing  the  cloak  over  the 
fence  of  a  vacant  lot  and  wiping  the  trickle  of  blood 
from  his  cheek  with  his  handkerchief. 

He  was  cool  and  master  of  himself  once  more.  His 
brain  was  cleared,  as  a  sky  by  storm,  and  he  knew  that 
to-night's  interview  must  be  one  of  the  last  he  would 
have  with  the  woman  who  had  come  to  stand  to  him 
for  love,  wealth,  success  and  happiness.  He  must  win 
or  lose  all  within  the  next  few  days. 

Bertrand's  looked  invitingly  bright  after  the  tem 
pestuous  blackness  of  the  streets.  Many  of  the  white 
draped  tables  were  unoccupied.  His  accustomed  eye 
noted  that  the  lady  in  the  blue  silk  dress  and  black  hat, 

398 


A   NIGHT'S   WORK  399 

and  her  companion  with  the  bald  head  and  cross-eye, 
who  always  sat  at  the  right-hand  corner  table,  were 
absent.  He  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  bowing  to 
them,  and  had  more  than  once  idly  wondered  what 
their  relations  were. 

"Monsieur  Esseex"  to-night  ate  little  and  drank 
much.  Etienne,  the  waiter,  a  black-haired,  pink- 
cheeked  garqon  from  Marseilles,  noticed  this  and  after 
ward  remarked  upon  it  to  Madame  Bertrand.  To  the 
few  other  habitues  of  the  place,  the  thin-faced,  hand 
some  man  with  an  ugly  furrow  down  his  cheek,  and  his 
hair  tumbled  on  his  forehead  by  the  pressure  of  his  hat, 
presented  the  same  suavely  imperturbable  demeanor  as 
usual.  But  Madame  Bertrand,  as  a  woman  whose 
business  it  was  to  observe  people  and  faces,  noticed 
that  monsieur  was  pale,  and  that  when  she  spoke  to 
him  on  the  way  in  he  had  given  a  distrait  answer,  not 
the  usual  phrase  of  debonair,  Gallic  greeting  she  had 
grown  to  expect. 

She  looked  at  him  from  her  cashier's  desk  and  re 
flected.  As  Etienne  afterward  repeated,  he  ate  little 
and  drank  much.  And  how  pale  he  looked,  with  the 
lamp  on  the  wall  above  him  throwing  out  the  high 
lights  on  his  face  and  deepening  the  shadows ! 

"He  is  in  love,"  thought  the  sentimental  Madame 
Bertrand,  "and  to-night  for  the  first  time  he  knows 
that  she  does  not  respond." 

He  sat  longer  than  he  had  ever  done  before  over  his 
dinner,  blowing  clouds  of  cigarette  smoke  about  his 
head,  and  watching  the  thin  blue  flame  of  the  burning 
lump  of  sugar  in  the  spoon  balanced  on  his  coffee-cup. 

Everybody  had  left,  and  he  still  sat  smoking,  leaning 


400  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

back  against  the  wall,  his  eyes  fixed  on  space  in  immov 
able,  concentrated  thought.  Bertrand  came  out  of  his 
corner,  and  in  his  cap  and  apron  stood  cooling  himself 
in  the  open  door  watching  the  rain.  Etienne  and 
Henri,  the  two  waiters  apportioned  to  that  part  of  the 
room,  hung  about  restless  and  tired,  eagerly  watching 
for  the  first  symptoms  of  his  departure.  Even  Madame 
Bertrand  began  to  burrow  under  the  cashier's  desk  for 
her  rubbers,  and  to  struggle  into  them  with  much 
creaking  of  corset  bones  and  subdued  French  ejacula 
tions.  It  was  after  nine  when  the  last  guest  finally 
pushed  back  his  chair.  Etienne  rushed  to  help  him  on 
with  his  coat,  and  Madame  Bertrand  bobbed  up  from 
her  rubbers  to  give  him  a  parting  smile. 

A  half-hour  later  he  was  lighting  the  gas  in  his  own 
room  in  Bush  Street.  The  damp  air  of  the  night  en 
tered  through  a  crack  of  opened  window,  introducing 
a  breath  of  sweet,  moist  freshness  into  the  smoke-satu 
rated  chamber.  He  threw  off  his  coat  and  lit  the  fire. 
As  soon  as  it  had  caught  satisfactorily  he  left  the  room, 
crossed  the  hall  noiselessly,  and  with  a  slight  prelimi 
nary  knock,  opened  Harney's  door.  The  man  was  sit 
ting  there  in  a  broken  rocking-chair,  reading  the  eve 
ning  paper  by  the  light  of  a  flaming  gas-jet.  He  had 
the  air  of  one  who  was  waiting,  and  as  Essex's  head 
was  advanced  round  the  edge  of  the  door,  he  looked 
up  with  alert,  expectant  eyes. 

"Come  into  my  room,"  said  the  younger  man; 
"there's  work  for  you  to-night." 

Harney  threw  down  his  paper  and  followed  him 
across  the  hall.  It  was  evident  that  he  was  sober,  and 
beyond  this  some  new  sense  of  importance  and  power 


A   NIGHT'S   WORK  401 

had  taken  from  his  manner  its  old  deprecation.  They 
were  equals  now,  pals  and  partners.  The  drunken 
typesetter  and  one-time  thief  was  still  under  Barry 
Essex's  thumb,  but  he  was  also  deep  in  his  confidence. 

He  sat  down  in  his  old  seat  by  the  fire,  his  eyes  on 
Essex. 

"What's  up?"  he  said;  "what  work  have  you  got 
for  me  such  a  night  as  this  ?" 

"Big  work,  and  with  big  money  behind  it,"  said  the 
younger  man;  "and  when  it's  done  we  each  get  our 
share  and  go  our  ways,  George  Harney." 

He  drew  his  chair  to  the  other  side  of  the  fire  and 
began  to  talk — his  voice  low  and  quiet  at  first,  grow 
ing  urgent  and  authoritative,  as  Harney  shrank  be 
fore  the  dangers  of  the  work  expected  of  him.  The 
moments  ticked  by,  the  fire  growing  hotter  and 
brighter,  the  roaring  of  the  storm  sounding  above  the 
voices  of  the  master  and  his  tool.  The  night  was  half 
spent  before  Harney  was  conquered  and  instructed. 

Then  the  men,  waiting  for  the  hour  of  deepest  sleep 
and  darkness,  continued  to  sit,  occasionally  speaking, 
the  light  of  the  leaping  flames  catching  and  losing 
their  anxious  faces  as  the  firelight  in  another  room 
was  touching  the  face  of  the  sleeping  girl  of  whom 
they  talked. 

It  was  nearly  three  when  a  movement  of  life  stirred 
the  blackness  of  the  Garcia  garden.  The  rushing  of 
the  rain  beat  down  all  sound ;  in  the  moist  soddenness 
of  the  earth  no  trace  lingered.  The  pepper-tree  bent 
and  cracked  to  the  gusts  as  it  did  to  the  additional 
weight  of  the  creeping  figure  in  its  boughs. 

This  was  merely  a  shapeless  bulk  of  blackness  amid 


402  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

the  fine  and  broken  blackness  of  the  swaying1  foliage. 
It  stole  forward  with  noiseless  caution,  though  it  might 
have  shouted  and  all  sound  been  lost  in  the  angry 
turmoil  of  the  night.  Creeping  upward  along  the 
great  limb  that  stretched  to  the  balcony  roof,  a  per 
pendicular  knife-edge  of  light  that  gleamed  from  be 
tween  the  curtains  of  a  window,  now  and  then  crossed 
its  face,  sometimes  dividing  it  clearly  in  two,  some 
times  illuminating  one  attentive  eye,  a  small  shining 
point  of  life  in  the  dead  murk  around  it,  one  eye, 
aglow  with  purpose,  gleaming  startlingly  from  black 
ness. 

The  loud  drumming  of  the  rain  on  the  balcony  roof 
drowned  the  crackle  of  the  tin  under  a  feeling  foot. 
To  slide  there  from  the  limb  only  occupied  a  moment. 
The  branch  had  grown  well  up  over  the  roof,  grating 
now  and  then  against  it  when  the  wind  was  high. 
The  thin  streak  of  light  from  between  the  curtains 
made  the  man  wary.  Why  was  she  burning  a  light  at 
this  hour  unless  she  was  sleepless  and  up  ? 

Pressed  close  to  the  pane  he  applied  his  eye  to  the 
crack  which  was  the  widest  near  the  sill.  He  saw  a 
portion  of  the  room,  looking  curiously  vivid  and  dis 
tinct  in  the  narrow  concentration  of  his  view.  It 
seemed  flooded  with  unsteady,  warmly  yellow  light. 
Straight  before  him  he  saw  a  table  with  a  rifled  tea- 
tray  on  it,  and  back  of  that  another  table.  The  one 
eye  pressed  to  the  crack  grew  absorbed  as  it  focused 
itself  on  the  second  table.  Among  a  litter  of  books, 
ornaments  and  feminine  trifles,  stood  a  small  desk  of 
dark  wood.  It  was  as  if  it  had  been  placed  there  to 
catch  his  attention — the  goal  of  his  line  of  vision. 


A   NIGHT'S   WORK  403 

Shifting  his  position  he  pressed  his  cheek  against 
the  glass  and  squinted  in  sidewise  to  where  a  deepen 
ing  and  quivering  of  the  light  spoke  of  a  fire.  Then 
he  saw  the  figure  of  the  sleeping  woman,  lying  in  an 
attitude  of  complete  repose  in  the  armchair.  He  gazed 
at  her  striving  to  gage  the  depth  of  her  sleep.  One 
of  her  hands  hung  over  the  arm  of  the  chair,  with  the 
gleam  of  the  fire  flickering  on  the  white  skin.  The 
same  light  touched  a  strand  of  loosened  hair.  Her 
face  was  in  profile  toward  him,  the  chin  pressed  down 
on  the  shoulder.  It  looked  like  a  picture  in  its  sugges 
tion  of  profound  unconsciousness. 

He  pushed  fearfully  on  the  cross-bar  of  the  pane, 
and  the  window  rose  a  hair's-breadth.  Then  again, 
and  it  was  high  enough  up  for  him  to  insert  his  hand. 
He  did  so,  and  drew  forward  the  curtain  of  heavy 
rep  so  as  to  hide  from  the  sleeper  the  gradual  stages 
of  his  entrance.  By  degrees  he  raised  it  to  a  height 
sufficient  to  permit  the  passage  of  his  body.  The  cur 
tain  shielded  the  girl  from  the  current  of  cold  air  that 
entered  the  room.  He  crept  in  softly  on  his  hands 
and  knees,  then  rose  to  his  feet. 

For  a  moment  he  made  no  further  movement,  but 
stood,  his  gaze  riveted  on  the  sleeper,  watching  for 
a  symptom  of  roused  consciousness.  She  slept  on 
peacefully,  the  light  sound  of  her  breathing  faintly 
audible. 

The  silence  of  the  hushed  house  seemed  weirdly 
terrifying  after  the  tumult  of  the  night  outside.  The 
thief  stole  forward  to  the  desk,  his  eye  continually 
turned  toward  her.  When  he  reached  the  table  she 
was  so  far  behind  him  that  he  could  only  see  the  sweep 


404  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

of  her  wrapper  on  the  floor,  her  shoulder,  and  the  top 
of  her  head  over  the  chair  back. 

He  tried  the  desk  with  an  unsteady  hand.  It  was 
locked,  but  the  insertion  of  a  steel  file  he  carried  broke 
the  frail  clasp.  It  gave  with  a  sharp  click  and  he 
stood,  his  hair  stirring,  watching  the  top  of  her  head. 
It  did  not  move,  the  silence  resettled,  he  could  again 
hear  her  light,  even  breathing. 

There  were  many  papers  in  the  desk,  bundles  of 
letters,  souvenirs  of  old  days  of  affluence.  He  tossed 
them  aside  with  tremulous  quickness  until,  underneath 
all,  he  came  on  a  long,  dirty  envelope  and  a  little 
chamois  leather  bag.  He  lifted  the  latter.  It  was 
heavy  and  emitted  a  faint  chink.  The  old  thief's  in 
stincts  rose  in  him.  But  he  first  opened  the  envelope, 
and  softly  drew  out  the  two  certificates,  took  the  one 
he  wanted,  and  put  the  other  back.  Then  he  opened  the 
mouth  of  the  bag.  The  gleam  of  gold  shone  from  the 
aperture.  Stricken  with  temptation  he  stood  hesitat 
ing. 

At  that  moment  the  fire,  a  heap  of  red  ruins,  fell 
together  with  a  small,  clinking  sound.  It  was  no 
louder  noise  than  he  had  made  when  opening  the  desk, 
but  it  contained  some  penetrating  quality  the  former 
had  lacked.  Still  hesitating,  with  the  sack  of  money 
in  his  hand,  he  turned  again  to  the  chair.  A  face, 
white  and  wide-eyed,  was  staring  at  him  round  the 
side. 

He  gave  a  smothered  oath  and  the  sack  dropped 
from  his  hand  to  the  table.  The  money  fell  from  it 
in  a  clattering  heap  and  rolled  about,  in  golden  zig 
zags  in  every  direction.  The  sound  roused  the  still 


A   NIGHT'S   WORK  405 

unawakened  intelligence  of  the  girl.  She  saw  the  paper 
in  his  hand,  half-opened.  Its  familiarity  broke 
through  her  dazed  senses.  She  rose  and  rushed  at 
him  gasping: 

"The  certificate !  the  certificate !" 

Harney  made  a  dash  for  the  open  window,  but  she 
caught  him  by  the  shoulder  and  arm,  and  with  the 
unimpaired  strength  of  her  healthy  youth  struggled 
with  him  hand  to  hand,  reaching  out  for  the  paper  he 
tried  to  keep  out  of  her  grasp.  In  the  fury  of  the  mo 
ment's  conflict,  neither  made  any  sound,  but  fought 
like  two  enraged  animals,  rocking  to  and  fro,  panting 
and  clutching  at  each  other. 

He  finally  wrenched  his  arm  free  and  struck  her' 
a  savage  blow,  aimed  at  her  head  but  falling  on  her 
shoulder,  which  sent  her  down  on  her  knees  and 
then  back  against  the  fire.  He  thought  he  had  stunned 
her,  and  raised  his  arm  again  when  she  sprang  up, 
tore  the  paper  out  of  his  grasp  and  pressed  it  with 
her  hand  down  into  the  coals  beside  her.  As  she  did 
so,  for  the  first  time  she  raised  her  voice  and  shrieked : 

"Mr.  Barren!  Mr.  Barren!  Come,  come!  Oh 
hurry!" 

From  the  hall  Harney  heard  a  movement  and  an 
answering  shout.  With  the  cries  echoing  through 
the  room  he  beat  her  down  against  the  grate,  and  tore 
the  paper,  curling  with  fire  on  the  edges,  from  her 
hand.  With  it,  he  dashed  through  the  open  sash,  a 
shiver  of  glass  following  him. 

Almost  simultaneously,  Barren  burst  into  the  room. 
He  had  been  reading  and  had  fallen  asleep  to  be 
waked  by  the  shrieks  of  the  girl's  voice,  which  were 


406  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

still  in  his  ears.  The  falling  of  broken  glass  and  a  rush 
of  cold  air  from  the  opened  window  greeted  him. 
Piled  on  the  table  and  scattered  about  the  floor  were 

Id  pieces.    Mariposa  was  kneeling  on  the  rug. 

"He's  got  it !"  she  cried  wildly,  and  struggling  to 
her  feet  rushed  to  the  window.  "He's  got  it !  Oh  go 
after  him !  Stop  him !" 

"Got  what  ?"  he  said.  "No,  he  hasn't  got  the  money. 
It's  all  there." 

He  seized  her  by  the  arm,  for  she  seemed  as  if  in 
tending  to  go  through  the  broken  window. 

"Not  the  money — not  the  money,"  she  shrieked, 
wringing  her  hands  ;  "the  paper — the  certificate !  He's 
got  it  and  gone,  this  way,  through  the  window." 

Barren  grasped  the  fact  that  she  had  been  robbed 
of  something  other  than  the  money,  the  loss  of  which 
seemed  to  render  her  half  distracted.  With  a  hasty 
word  of  reassurance,  he  turned  and  ran  from  the  room, 
springing  down  the  stairs  and  across  the  hall.  In  the 
instant's  pause  by  the  window  he  had  heard  the  sound 
of  feet  on  the  steps  below  and  judged  that  he  could 
get  down  more  quickly  by  the  stairs  than  by  the  limb 
of  the  tree. 

But  the  few  minutes'  start  and  the  darkness  of  the 
night  were  on  the  side  of  the  thief.  The  roar  of  the 
rain  drowned  his  footsteps.  Barren  ran  this  way  and 
that,  but  neither  sight  nor  sound  of  his  quarry  was 
vouchsafed  to  him.  The  man  had  got  away  with  his 
booty,  whatever  it  was. 

In  fifteen  minutes  Barren  was  back  and  found  the 
Garcia  ladies  in  Mariposa's  room,  ministering  to  the 


WITH     THE     STRENGTH     OK     HKR     HEAL'I  HY     VUUT1I     SHK 
STRUGGLED     WITH     HIM  " 


A    NIGHT'S    WORK  407 

girl  who  lay  in  a  heavy  swoon,  stark  and  white  on  the 
hearth-rug. 

The  old  lady,  in  some  wondrous  and  intimate  desha 
bille,  greeted  him  eagerly  in  Spanish,  demanding  what 
had  happened.  He  told  her  all  he  knew  and  knelt 
down  beside  the  younger  Mrs.  Garcia,  who  was  at 
tempting  with  a  shaking  hand  to  pour  brandy  between 
Mariposa's  set  teeth. 

"We  heard  the  most  awful  shrieks,  and  we  rushed 
up,  and  here  she  was  standing  and  screaming:  'He's 
got  it !  He's  got  it !'  And  then  she  fell  flat,  quite  sud 
denly,  and  has  lain  here  this  way  ever  since." 

"It  was  a  robber,"  said  the  old  woman,  looking  at 
the  scattered  gold,  "but  he  didn't  get  her  money. 
What  was  it  he  took,  I  wonder  ?" 

"Some  papers,  I  think,"  said  Barren,  "that  were 
evidently  of  value  to  her.  I'll  lift  her  up  and  put  her 
on  the  bed  and  then  I'll  go.  As  soon  as  she's  con 
scious  ask  her  what  the  man  took  and  come  and  tell 
me,  and  I'll  go  right  to  the  police  station." 

"Oh,  don't  leave  us,"  implored  Mrs.  Garcia,  junior 
— "if  there  are  burglars  anywhere  round.  Oh,  please 
don't  go.  Pierpont's  away  and  we'd  have  no  man  in 
the  house.  Don't  go  till  morning.  I'm  just  as  scared 
as  I  can  be !" 

"There's  nothing  to  be  scared  about.  The  man's 
got  twhat  he  wanted,  and  he'll  take  precious  good  care 
not  to  come  back." 

"Oh,  but  don't  go  till  it  gets  light.  The  window's 
broken  and  any  one  can  come  in  who  wants." 

"All  right,  I'll  wait  till  it  gets  light.  I'll  lift  her 
up  now,  if  you'll  get  the  bed  ready." 


408  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

With  the  assistance  of  eld  Mrs.  Garcia  he  lifted 
her  and  carried  her  to  the  bed.  One  of  her  arms  fell 
limp  against  his  shoulder  as  he  laid  her  down,  and 
the  old  lady  uttered  an  exclamation.  She  lifted  it 
up  and  showed  him  a  curious  red  welt  on  the  white 
wrist. 

"It's  a  burn,"  she  said.    "How  did  she  get  that  ?" 

"She  must  have  fallen  against  the  grate,"  he  an 
swered.  His  eyes  grew  dark  as  they  encountered  the 
scar.  "As  soon  as  she's  conscious  tell  me." 

A  few  minutes  later,  the  young  widow  found  him 
sitting  on  a  chair  under  a  lamp  in  the  hall. 

"Well,"  he  said  eagerly,  "how  is  she?" 

"She's  come  back  to  her  senses  all  right.  But  she 
doesn't  seem  to  want  to  tell  what  he  took.  She  says 
it  was  a  paper,  and  that's  all,  and  that  she  never  saw 
him  before.  Mother  doesn't  think  we  ought  to  worry 
her.  She  says  she's  got  a  fever,  and  she's  going  to 
give  her  medicine  to  make  her  sleep,  and  not  to  dis 
turb  her  till  she  wakes  up.  She's  all  broken  up  and 
sort  of  limp  and  trembly." 

"Well,  I  suppose  the  senora  knows  best.  It'll  be 
light  soon  now,  and  I'll  go  to  the  police  station.  The 
senora  and  you  will  stay  with  her  ?" 

"O  yes,"  said  Mrs.  Garcia,  the  younger.  "My  good 
ness,  what  a  night  it's  been !  It's  lucky  the  man  didn't 
get  her  money.  There  was  quite  a  lot ;  about  five  hun 
dred  dollars,  I  should  think.  Oh,  my  curl  papers !  I 
forget  them.  Gracious,  what  a  sight  I  must  look!" 
and  she  shuffled  down  the  stairs. 

Barren  sat  on  till  the  dawn  broke  gray  through  the 


A    NIGHT'S    WORK  409 

hall  window.  He  was  beginning  to  wonder  if  this 
girl  was  the  central  figure  of  some  drama,  secret,  in 
tricate  and  unsuspected,  which  was  working  out  to 
its  conclusion. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE   LOST   VOICE 

"There  may  be  heaven ;  there  must  be  hell ; 
Meantime  there  is  our  earth  here — well !" 

— BROWNING. 

The  fears  of  Mrs.  Garcia  held  Barren  to  the  house 
till  the  morning  light  was  fully  established.  This  was 
late,  even  for  the  winter  season,  as  the  rain  still  fell 
heavily,  retarding  the  coming  of  day  with  a  leaden  veil. 

He  made  his  report  at  the  police  station,  and  then 
went  down  town  to  his  office  where  business  detained 
him  till  noon.  It  was  his  habit  to  lunch  at  the  Lick 
House,  but  to-day  he  hurried  back  to  the  Garcias', 
striding  up  the  series  of  hills  at  top  speed,  urged  on 
by  his  desire  to  hear  news  of  Mariposa.  He  burst 
into  the  house  to  find  it  silent — the  hall  empty.  As 
he  was  hanging  his  hat  on  the  rack,  young  Mrs.  Garcia 
appeared  from  the  kitchen,  her  bang  somewhat  limp, 
though  it  was  still  early  in  the  day,  her  face  looking 
small  and  peaked  after  her  exciting  night's  vigil. 

Mariposa  was  still  asleep,  she  said  in  answer  to  his 
query.  The  senora  had  given  her  a  powerful  sleeping 
draft  and  had  said  that  the  rest  would  be  the  best  re 
storative  after  such  a  shock.  If,  when  she  waked,  she 

410 


THE    LOST   VOICE  411 

showed  symptoms  of  suffering  or  prostration,  they 
would  send  for  the  doctor. 

"Have  you  found  her  paper?"  she  asked  anxiously. 
"She  seemed  in  such  a  way  about  it  last  night." 

He  muttered  a  preoccupied  answer,  mentioning  his 
visit  to  the  police  station. 

"What  was  it,  anytway?  Do  you  know?"  inquired 
the  young  woman  who  was  not  exempt  from  the  weak 
nesses  of  her  sex. 

"Some  legal  document,  I  think,  but  I  don't  know. 
The  police  can't  do  much  till  they  know  what  it  is." 

"Perhaps  it  was  a  will,"  said  the  widow,  whose  sole 
literature  was  that  furnished  by  the  daily  press; 
"though  I  should  think  if  it  was  a  will  she'd  have  told 
about  it  by  now  and  not  kept  it  hid  away  up  there. 
Anyway,  she  thought  a  lot  of  it,  for  when  she  came 
to  I  told  her  her  money  was  all  right,  and  she  said  she 
didn't  care  about  the  money,  she  wanted  the  paper." 

"I'll  see  her  when  she  wakes,','  said  Barren,  "and 
find  out  what  it  was.  Our  affair  now  is  to  see  that  she 
is  not  frightened  again  and  gets  well." 

"Well,  mother  says  to  let  her  sleep.  So  that's  what 
we're  going  to  do.  No  one's  going  to  disturb  her,  and 
Pierpont,  who  got  back  an  hour  ago,  has  promised 
not  to  give  any  lessons  all  afternoon." 

The  conversation  was  here  interrupted  by  the  ap 
pearance  of  the  Chinaman,  who  loungingly  issued 
from  the  kitchen,  shouted  an  unintelligible  phrase  at 
his  mistress,  and  disappeared  into  the  dining-room. 
His  words  seemed  to  have  meaning  to  her,  for  she 
pulled  off  her  apron,  saying  briskly : 

"There,  dinner's  ready  and  we're  going  to  have  en- 


412  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

chilados.  Don't  you  smell  them?  The  boys  will  be 
crazy." 

A  cautious  inspection  made  after  dinner  by  young 
Mrs.  Garcia,  resulted  in  the  information  that  Mariposa 
still  slept.  Barren,  who  was  feverishly  desirous  to 
know  how  she  progressed  and  also  anxious  to  learn 
from  her  the  nature  of  the  lost  document,  was  forced 
to  leave  without  seeing  her.  A  business  engagement 
of  the  utmost  importance  claimed  him  at  his  office  at 
two  or  he  would  have  awaited  her  awakening. 

It  was  nearly  an  hour  later  before  this  occurred. 
The  drug  the  senora  had  administered  was  a  heroic 
remedy,  relic  of  the  days  when  doctors  were  a  rarity 
and  the  medicine  chest  of  the  hardy  Spaniard  con 
tained  few  but  powerful  potions.  The  girl  rose,  feeling 
weak  and  dizzy.  For  some  time  she  found  it  difficult 
to  collect  her  thoughts  and  sat  on  the  edge  of  her  bed, 
eying  the  disordered  room  with  uncomprehending 
glances.  Bodily  discomfort  at  first  absorbed  her  mind. 
A  fever  burned  through  her,  her  head  ached,  her  limbs 
felt  leaden  and  stiff. 

The  sight  of  the  opened  desk  gave  the  fillip  to  her 
befogged  memory,  and  suddenly  the  events  of  the 
night  rushed  back  on  her  with  stunning  force.  She 
felt,  at  first,  that  it  must  be  a  dream.  But  the  rifled 
desk,  with  the  money  which  the  Garcias  had  gathered 
up  and  laid  in  a  glittering  heap  on  the  table,  told  her 
of  its  truth.  The  man's  face,  yellow  and  flabby,  with 
the  dark  line  of  the  shaven  beard  clearly  marked  on 
his  jaws,  and  the  frightened  rat's  eyes,  came  back 
to  her  as  he  had  turned  in  the  first  paralyzed  moment 
of  fear.  With  hot,  unsteady  hands  she  searched 


THE   LOST   VOICE  413 

through  the  scattered  papers  and  then  about  the  room, 
in  the  hope  that  he  had  dropped  the  paper  in  the 
struggle.  But  all  search  was  fruitless.  She  remem 
bered  his  tearing  it  from  her  grasp  as  Barren's  shout 
had  sounded  in  the  passage.  He  had  escaped  with  it. 
The  irrefutable  evidence  of  the  marriage  was  in  Es 
sex's  hands.  He  had  her  under  his  feet.  It  was  the 
end. 

She  began  to  dress  slowly  and  with  constant  pauses. 
Every  movement  seemed  an  effort ;  every  stage  of  her 
toilet  loomed  colossal  before  her.  The  one  horror  of 
the  situation  kept  revolving  in  her  brain,  and  she 
found  it  impossible  to  detach  her  thoughts  from  it 
and  fix  them  on  anything  else.  At  the  same  time  she 
could  think  of  no  way  to  escape,  or  to  fight  against  it. 

Next  Sunday  it  would  all  be  in  The  Era.  Those 
words  seemed  written  in  letters  of  fire  on  the  walls, 
and  repeated  themselves  in  maddening  revolution  in 
her  mind.  It  would  all  be  there,  sensationally  dis 
played  as  other  old  scandals  had  been.  She  saw  the 
tragic  secret  of  the  two  lives  that  had  sheltered  hers, 
the  love  that  had  been  so  sacred  a  thing  written  of 
with  all  the  defiling  brutality  of  the  common  scribe 
and  his  common  reader,  for  all  the  world  of  the  low 
and  ignoble  to  jeer  at  and  spit  upon. 

She  stopped  in  her  dressing  and  pressed  her  hands 
to  her  face.  How  could  she  live  till  next  Sunday,  and 
then,  when  Sunday  came,  live  through  it  ?  There  were 
three  days  yet  before  Sunday.  Might  not  something 
be  done  in  three  days?  But  she  could  think  of  noth 
ing.  Something  had  happened  to  her  brain.  If  there 
was  only  some  one  to  help  her ! 


414  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

And  with  that  came  the  thought  of  Barren.  A  flash 
of  relief  went  through  her.  He  would  help  her;  he 
would  do  something.  She  had  no  idea  what,  but  some 
thing,  and,  uplifted  by  the  idea,  she  opened  the  door 
and  looked  up  the  hall.  She  felt  a  sudden  drop  of 
hope  when  she  saw  that  his  door  was  closed.  But  she 
stole  up  the  passage,  watching  it,  not  knowing  what 
she  intended  saying  to  him,  only  actuated  by  the  desire 
to  throw  her  responsibilities  on  him  and  ask  for  his 
help. 

The  door  was  ajar  and  she  listened  outside  it. 
There  was  no  sound  from  within  and  no  scent  of  cigar- 
smoke.  She  tapped  softly  and  receiving  no  answer 
pushed  it  open  and  peered  fearfully  in.  The  room  was 
empty.  The  man's  clothes  were  thrown  about  care 
lessly,  his  table  littered  with  papers  and  books.  From 
the  crevice  of  the  opened  window  came  the  smell  and 
the  sound  of  the  rain,  with  a  chill,  bleak  suggestion. 

A  sudden  throttling  sense  of  lonely  helplessness 
overwhelmed  her.  She  stood  looking  blankly  about, 
at  the  ashes  of  cigars  in  a  china  saucer,  at  an  old 
valise  gaping  open  in  a  corner.  The  room  seemed  to 
her  to  have  a  vacated  air,  and  she  remembered  hearing 
Barren,  a  few  days  before,  speak  of  going  to  the 
mines  again  soon.  Her  mind  leaped  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  had  gone.  Her  hopes  suddenly  fell  around 
her  in  ruins,  and  in  his  looking-glass  she  saw  a 
blanched  face  that  she  hardly  recognized  as  her  own. 

Stealing  back  to  her  room  she  sat  down  on  the  bed 
again.  The  house  was  curiously  quiet  and  in  this 
silence  her  thoughts  began  once  more  to  revolve  round 
the  one  topic.  Then  suddenly  they  broke  into  a  burst 


THE   LOST   VOICE  415 

of  rebellion.  She  could  not  bear  it.  She  must  go, 
somewhere,  anywhere  to  escape.  She  would  flee  away 
like  a  hunted  animal  and  hide,  creeping  into  some 
dark  distant  place  and  cowering  there.  But  where 
would  she  go,  and  what  would  she  do?  The  world 
outside  seemed  one  vast  menace  waiting  to  spring  on 
her.  If  her  head  would  stop  aching  and  the  fever 
that  burned  her  body  and  clouded  her  brain  would 
cease  for  a  moment,  she  could  think  and  come  to  some 
conclusion.  But  now — 

And  suddenly,  as  she  thought,  a  whisper  seemed  to 
come  to  her,  clear  and  distinct  like  a  revelation — "You 
have  your  voice !" 

It  lifted  her  to  her  feet.  For  a  moment  the  pain 
and  confusion  of  developing  illness  left  her,  and  she 
felt  a  thrill  of  returning  energy.  She  had  it  still,  the 
one  great  gift  neither  enemies  nor  misfortune  could 
take  from  her — her  voice ! 

The  hope  shook  her  out  of  the  lethargy  of  fever, 
and  her  mind  sprang  into  excited  action  like  a  loos 
ened  spring.  She  went  to  her  desk  and  placed  the 
gold  back  in  its  bag.  The  five  hundred  dollars  that 
had  seemed  so  meaningless  had  now  a  use.  It  would 
take  her  away  to  Europe.  With  the  three  hundred 
she  still  had  in  the  bank,  it  would  be  enough  to  take  her 
to  Paris  and  leave  her  something  to  live  on.  Money 
went  a  long  way  over  there,  she  had  heard.  She  could 
study  and  sing  and  become  famous. 

It  all  seemed  suddenly  possible,  almost  easy.  Only 
leaving  would  be  hard — fearfully.  She  thought  of  the 
door  up  the  passage  and  the  voice  that  in  those  first 
days  of  her  feebleness  had  called  a  greeting  to  her 


416  TOMORROW'S    TANGLE 

every  morning;  the  man's  deep  voice  with  its  strong, 
cheery  note.  And  then  like  a  peevish  child,  sick  and 
unreasonable,  she  found  herself  saying: 

"Why  does  he  leave  me  now  when  I  want  him  so?" 

No — her  voice  was  all  she  had.  She  would  live  for 
it  and  be  famous,  and  the  year  of  terror  and  anguish 
she  had  spent  in  San  Francisco  would  become  a  dim 
memory  upon  which  she  could  some  day  look  back 
with  calm.  But  before  she  went  she  would  sing  for 
Pierpont  and  hear  what  he  said. 

The  thought  had  hardly  formed  in  her  mind  when 
she  was  out  in  the  hall  and  stealing  noiselessly  down 
the  stairs  of  the  silent  house.  It  struck  her  as  odd 
that  the  house  should  be  so  quiet,  as  these  were  the 
hours  in  which  Pierpont's  pupils  usually  made  the 
welkin  resound  with  their  efforts.  Perhaps  he  was 
out.  But  this  was  not  so,  for  in  the  lower  hall  she 
met  the  girl  with  the  fair  hair  and  prominent  blue 
eyes  who  possessed  the  fine  soprano  voice  she  had 
so  often  listened  to,  and  who  in  response  to  her  query 
told  her  that  Mr.  Pierpont  was  in,  but  not  giving  les 
sons  this  afternoon. 

In  answer  to  her  knock  she  heard  his  "come  in" 
and  opened  the  door.  He  was  sitting  on  a  divan  idly 
turning  over  some  loose  sheets  of  music.  The  large, 
sparsely  furnished  room — it  was  in  reality  the  back 
drawing-room  of  the  house — looked  curiously  gray 
and  cold  in  the  dreai  afternoon  light.  It  was  only 
slightly  furnished — his  bed  and  toilet  articles  being 
in  a  curtained  alcove.  In  the  center  of  its  unadorned, 
occupied  bareness,  the  grand  piano,  gleaming  richly, 
stood  open,  the  stool  in  front  of  it. 


THE   LOST   VOICE  417 

"Miss  Moreau,"  he  said,  starting-  to  his  feet,  "I 
thought  you  were  sick  in  bed.  How  are  you  ?  You've 
had  a  dreadful  experience.  I've  been  sending  away 
my  pupils  because  I  was  told  you  were  asleep." 

"Oh,  I'm  quite  well  now,"  she  said,  "only  my  head 
aches  a  little.  Yes,  I  was  frightened  last  night — a 
burglar  came  in,  crept  up  the  bough  of  the  pepper- 
tree.  I  was  dreadfully  frightened  then,  but  I'm  all 
right  now.  I've  come  to  sing  for  you." 

"To  sing  for  me !"  he  exclaimed ;  "but  you're  not 
well  enough  to  sing.  You've  had  a  bad  fright  and 
you  look — excuse  me" — he  took  her  hand — "you're 
burning  up  with  fever.  Take  my  advice  and  go  up 
stairs,  and  as  soon  as  Mrs.  Garcia  comes  in  we'll  get  a 
doctor." 

"No — no!"  she  said  almost  violently;  "I'm  quite 
well  now.  My  hand's  hot  and  so  is  my  head,  but  that's 
natural  after  the  fright  I  had  last  night.  I  want  to 
sing  for  you  now  and  see  what  you  say  about  my 
voice." 

"But,  you  know,  you  can't  do  yourself  justice  and 
I  can't  form  a  fair  opinion.  Why  do  you  want  to  sing 
this  afternoon  when  you  wouldn't  all  winter?" 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I  don't  mind  telling  you.  I'm 
going  to  Europe  to  study.  I've  just  made  up  my 
mind." 

"Going  to  Europe!  Isn't  that  very  sudden?  But 
it  will  be  splendid !  When  are  you  going  ?" 

"Soon — in  a  day  or  two — as  soon  as  I  can  get  my 
things  packed  in  my  trunks." 

He  looked  at  her  curiously.  Her  manner,  which 
was  usually  calm  and  deliberate,  was  marked  by  trem- 


4i8  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

ulous  restlessness.  She  spoke  rapidly  and  like  one 
laboring  under  suppressed  excitement. 

"Come,"  she  said,  going  to  the  piano  stool  and  push 
ing  it  nearer  the  keyboard,  "I'll  be  very  busy  now  and 
I  don't  want  to  waste  any  time." 

He  moved  reluctantly  to  the  piano  and  seated  him 
self. 

"Have  you  your  music?"  he  asked. 

"No,  but  I  can  sing  what  some  of  your  pupils  do. 
I  can  sing  'Knowest  thou  the  land?'  and  Mrs.  Burrell 
sings  that.  Where  is  it?" 

Her  feverish  haste  and  nervousness  impressed  him 
more  than  ever  as  her  hands  tossed  aside  the  sheets 
of  piled-up  music,  throwing  them  about  the  piano  and 
snatching  at  them  as  they  slipped  to  the  floor.  From 
there  he  picked  up  the  'Mignon'  aria  which  she  had 
overlooked  and  spreading  it  on  the  rack  struck  the 
opening  notes.  She  leaned  over  him  to  see  the  first 
line  and  he-  felt  that  she  was  trembling  violently.  He 
raised  his  hands  and  wheeled  round  on  the  stool. 

"Miss  Moreau,"  he  said,  "I  truly  don't  think  you're 
well  enough  to  sing.  Don't  you  think  we'd  better  put 
it  off  till  to-morrow  ?" 

"No,  no — I'm  going  to  now.  I'm  ready.  I'm  anx 
ious  to.  I  must.  Begin  again,  please." 

He  turned  obediently  and  began  again  to  play  the 
chords  of  accompaniment.  He  had  been  for  a  long 
time  intensely  anxious  to  hear  her  voice,  of  which  he 
had  heard  so  much.  It  irritated  him  now  to  have  her 
determined  to  sing  when  she  was  obviously  ill  and 
still  suffering  from  the  effects  of  her  fright. 

The  accompaniment  reached  the  point   where  the 


THE   LOST   VOICE  419 

voice  joins  it.  He  played  softly,  alert  for  the  first 
rich  notes.  Mariposa's  chest  rose  with  an  inflation  of 
air  and  she  began  to  sing. 

A  sound,  harsh,  veiled  and  thin,  filled  the  room. 
There  was  no  volume,  nor  resonance,  nor  beauty  in  it. 
It  was  the  ghost  of  a  voice. 

The  teacher  was  so  shocked  that  for  a  moment  he 
stumbled  in  the  familiar  accompaniment.  Then  he 
went  on,  bending  his  head  low  over  the  keys,  fearful 
of  her  seeing  his  face.  Sounds  unmusical,  rasping, 
and  discordant  came  from  her  lips.  Everything  that 
had  once  made  it  rich  and  splendid  was  gone,  the  very 
volume  of  it  had  dwindled  to  a  thin,  muffled  thread, 
the  color  had  flown  from  every  tone. 

For  a  bar  or  two  she  went  on,  then  she  stopped. 
Pierpont  dared  not  turn  at  first.  But  he  heard  her 
behind  him  say  hoarsely : 

"What— what— is  it?" 

Then  he  wheeled  round  and  saw  her  with  wild  eyes 
and  white  lips. 

For  a  moment  he  could  s,ay  nothing.  Her  appear 
ance  struck  him  with  alarm,  and  he  sat  dumb  on  the 
stool  staring  at  her. 

"What  is  it  ?"  she  cried.  "What  has  happened  to  it  ? 
Where  is  my  voice  ?" 

'It's — it's — certainly  not  in  good  condition,"  he 
stammered. 

"It's  gone,"  she  answered  in  a  wail  of  agony;  "it's 
gone.  My  voice  has  gone!  What  shall  I  do?  It's 
gone !" 

"Your  fright  of  last  night  has  affected  it,"  he  said, 
speaking  as  kindly  as  he  could,  "and  you're  not  well. 


420  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

I  told  you  you  were  feverish  and  ought  not  to  sing. 
Rest  will  probably  restore  it." 

"Let  me  try  it  again,"  she  said  wildly.  "It  may  be 
better.  Play  again." 

He  played  over  the  opening  bars  again,  and  once 
more  she  drew  the  deep  breath  that  in  the  past  had  al 
ways  brought  with  it  so  much  of  exultation  and  began 
to  sing.  The  same  feeble  sounds,  obscured  as  though 
passing  through  a  thick,  muffling  medium,  hoarse,  flat, 
unlovely,  came  with  labor  from  her  parted  lips. 

They  broke  suddenly  into  a  wild  animal  cry  of 
despair.  Pierpont  rose  from  the  stool  and  went  toward 
her  where  she  stood  with  her  arms  drooping  by  her 
sides,  pallid  and  terrible. 

"Don't  look  like  that,"  he  said,  taking  her  hand; 
"there's  no  doubt  the  voice  has  been  injured.  But 
rest  does  a  great  deal,  and  after  a  shock  like  last 
night—" 

She  tore  herself  away  from  him  and  ran  to  the  door 
crying : 

"Oh,  my  voice !    My  voice !    It  was  all  I  had !" 

He  followed  her  into  the  hall,  not  knowing  what  to 
say  in  the  face  of  such  a  calamity,  only  anxious  to 
offer  her  some  consolation.  But  she  ran  from  him, 
up  the  stairs  with  a  frantic  speed.  As  he  put  his  foot 
on  the  lower  step  he  heard  her  door. 

He  turned  round  and  went  back  slowly  to  his  room. 
He  was  shocked  and  amazed,  and  a  little  relieved  that 
he  had  failed  to  catch  her  for  he  had  no  words  ready 
for  such  a  misfortune.  Her  voice  was  completely 
gone.  She  was  unquestionably  ill  and  nervous — but — 


THE   LOST   VOICE  421 

He  sat  down  on  the  divan,   shaking  his  head.     He 
had  never  heard  a  voice  more  utterly  lost  and  wrecked. 

Barren's  business  engagement  detained  him  longer 
than  he  had  expected.  The  heavy  rain  was  shortening 
the  already  short  February  day  with  a  premature 
dusk  when  he  opened  the  gate  of  the  Garcia  house 
and  mounted  the  steps. 

He  had  made  a  cursory  investigation  of  the  ground 
under  the  pepper-tree  when  he  went  out  in  the  early 
morning.  Now,  before  the  light  died,  he  again  stepped 
under  its  branches  for  a  more  thorough  survey.  The 
foliage  was  so  thick  that  no  grass  grew  where  the 
tree's  shadow  fell,  and  the  rain  sifted  through  it  in 
occasional  dribbles  or  shaken  showers.  The  bare 
stretch  of  ground  was  now  an  expanse  of  mud,  inter 
spersed  (with  puddles.  Here  and  there  a  footprint 
still  remained,  full  of  water.  He  moved  about  the 
base  of  the  tree  studying  these,  then  looking  up  into 
the  branch  along  which  the  burglar  had  crept  to  the 
balcony.  What  paper  could  the  girl  have  possessed  of 
sufficient  value  to  lure  a  man  to  such  risks? 

With  his  mind  full  of  this  thought  his  glance 
dropped  to  the  root  of  the  trunk.  A  piece  of  burnt  pa 
per,  half  covered  with  the  trampled  mud,  caught  his 
eye,  and  he  picked  it  up  and  absently  glanced  at  it.  He 
was  about  to  throw  it  over  the  fence  into  the  road,  when 
he  saw  the  name  of  Jacob  Shackleton.  The  next  mo 
ment  his  eyes  were  riveted  on  the  printed  lines  here 
and  there  filled  in  with  writing.  He  moved  so  that  the 
full  light  fell  on  it  through  a  break  in  the  branches. 


422  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

It  was  a  minute  or  two  before  he  grasped  its  real  mean 
ing.  But  he  knew  the  name  of  Lucy  Fraser,  too. 
Mariposa  had  once  told  him  it  had  been  her  mother's 
maiden  name. 

For  a  space  he  stood  motionless  under  the  tree,  star 
ing  at  the  paper,  focusing  his  mind  on  it,  seizing  on 
waifs  and  strays  from  the  past  that  surged  to  the  sur 
face  of  his  memory.  It  dazed  him  at  first.  Then  he 
began  to  understand.  The  mysterious  drama  that  en 
vironed  the  girl  upstairs  began  to  grow  clear  to  him. 
This  was  the  document  that  had  been  stolen  from  her 
last  night,  the  loss  of  which  had  thrown  her  into  a 
frenzy  of  despair — the  record  of  a  marriage  between 
her  mother  and  Jake  Shackleton. 

Without  stopping  to  think  further  he  thrust  it  into 
his  pocket  and  ran  to  the  house.  As  he  mounted  the 
porch  steps  the  scene  of  his  first  meeting  with  Mari 
posa  flashed  suddenly  like  a  magic-lantern  picture  across 
his  mind.  He  heard  her  hysterical  cry  of — "He  was 
my  father !"  Another  veil  of  the  mystery  seemed  lifted. 

And  now  he  shrank  from  penetrating  further,  for 
he  began  to  see.  If  Mariposa  had  some  sore  secret 
to  hide  let  her  keep  it  shut  in  her  own  breast.  All  he 
had  to  do  was  to  give  the  paper  to  her  as  soon  as  he 
could.  In  the  moment's  passage  of  the  balcony  and 
the  pause  while  he  inserted  his  latch-key  in  the  door 
he  tried  to  think  how  he  could  restore  it  to  her  with 
out  letting  her  think  he  had  read  it.  The  key  turned 
and  as  the  door  gave  he  decided  that  it  must  be  given 
her  at  once  without  wasting  time  or  bothering  about 
comforting  lies. 

He  burst  into  the  hall  and  then  stood  still,  the  door- 


THE   LOST   VOICE  423 

handle  in  his  hand.  In  the  dim  light,  the  two  Garcia 
ladies  and  the  two  boys  met  his  eyes,  standing  in  a 
group  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  There  was  something 
in  their  faces  and  attitudes  that  bespoke  uneasiness 
and  anxiety.  Their  four  pairs  of  eyes  were  fastened  on 
him  with  curious  alarmed  gravity. 

He  kicked  the  door  shut  and  said : 

"How's  Miss  Moreau?" 

The  question  seemed  to  increase  their  disquietude. 

"We  don't  know  where  she  is,"  said  young  Mrs. 
Garcia. 

"Isn't  she  in  her  room  ?"  he  demanded. 

"No — that's  what's  so  funny.  I  thought  she  was 
sleeping  an  awful  long  time  and  I  just  peeked  in  and 
she  isn't  there.  And  Benito's  been  all  over  the  house 
and  can't  find  her.  It  seems  so  crazy  of  her  to  go  out 
in  all  this  rain,  but  her  outside  things  are  not  in  the 
closet  or  anywhere." 

They  stood  silent  for  a  moment,  eying  one  another 
with  faces  of  disturbed  query. 

The  opening  of  Pierpont's  door  roused  them.  The 
young  man  appeared  in  the  aperture  and  then  came 
slowly  forward. 

"Have  you  seen  Miss  Moreau?"  he  said  to  young 
Mrs.  Garcia. 

"No,"  said  Barren  hurriedly ;  "but  have  you  ?" 

"Yes,  she  was  down  in  my  room  this  afternoon 
singing." 

"Singing!"  echoed  the  others  in  wide-eyed  amaze 
ment. 

"Yes,  and  I'm  rather  anxious  about  her.  That's 
why  I  came  out  when  I  heard  your  voices.  She's  had 


424  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

a  pretty  severe  disappointment,  I'm  afraid.  She  seems 
to  have  lost  her  voice." 

"Lost  her  voice!"  ejaculated  Mrs.  Garcia  in  a  low 
gasp  of  horror.  "Good  heavens !" 

The  boys  looked  from  one  to  the  other  with  the 
round  eyes  of  growing  fear  and  dread.  The  calamity, 
as  announced  by  Pierpont,  did  not  seem  adequate  for 
the  consternation  it  caused,  but  an  oppressive  sense  of 
apprehension  was  in  the  air. 

"What  made  her  want  to  sing?"  said  the  widow; 
"she  was  too  sick  to  sing." 

"That's  what  I  told  her,  but  she  insisted.  She  was 
determined  to.  She  said  she  was  going  to  Europe  to 
study." 

"Going  to  Europe !"  It  was  Barren's  deep  voice 
that  put  the  question  this  time,  Mrs.  Garcia  being  too 
astonished  by  this  last  piece  of  intelligence  to  have 
breath  for  speech.  "When  was  she  going  to  Europe  ?" 

"In  a  day  or  two — as  soon  as  she  could  pack  her 
trunks,  she  said.  I  don't  really  think  she  was  quite 
accountable  for  what  she  said.  She  was  burning  with 
a  fever  and  she  seemed  in  a  tremendously  wrought- 
up  state.  I  think  her  fright  of  the  night  before  had 
quite  upset  her.  I  tried  to  cheer  her  up,  but  she  ran 
away  as  if  she  was  frantic.  Have  any  of  you  seen 
her?" 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Garcia,  her  voice  curiously  flat. 
"She's  gone." 

"Gone?"  echoed  Pierpont.    "Gone  where?" 

"We  don't  any  of  us  know.  But  she's  not  in  the 
house  anywhere.  And  now  it's  getting  dark  and — " 

There  was  a  pause,  one  of  those  pregnant  pauses 


THE   LOST   VOICE  425 

of  mute  anxiety  while  each  eyed  the  other  with  glances 
full  of  an  alarmed  surmise. 

"Perhaps  the  robber  came  and  took  her  away,"  said 
Benito  in  a  voice  of  terror. 

No  one  paid  any  attention.  As  if  by  common  con 
sent  all  present  fastened  questioning  eyes  on  Barren. 
He  stood  looking  down,  his  brows  knit.  The  silence 
of  dumb  uneasiness  was  broken  by  the  entrance  of  the 
Chinaman  from  the  kitchen.  With  the  expressionless 
phlegm  of  his  race  he  lit  the  two  hall  gas-jets,  gently 
but  firmly  moving  the  senora  out  of  his  way,  and  pay 
ing  no  attention  to  the  silent  group  at  the  stair  foot. 

"Ching,"  said  Barron  suddenly,  "have  you  seen  Miss 
Moreau  this  afternoon?" 

"Yes,"  returned  the  Celestial,  carefully  adjusting 
the  tap  of  the  second  gas,  "she  go  out  hap-past  four. 
She  heap  hurry.  She  look  welly  bad — heap  sick  I 
guess ;  no  umblella ;  get  awful  wet." 

With  his  noiseless  tread  he  retreated  up  the  passage 
to  the  kitchen. 

"Well,  I'll  go,"  said  Barron  suddenly.  "She's  just 
possibly  gone  out  to  see  some  one  and  will  be  back 
soon.  But  no  umbrella  in  this  rain!  Have  her  room 
warm  and  everything  ready." 

He  turned  round  and  in  an  instant  was  gone.  The 
little  group  at  the  stairpost  looked  at  one  another  with 
pale  faces.  It  was  possible  that  Mariposa  had  gone 
out  to  see  some  one.  But  the  dread  of  disaster  was  at 
every  heart 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

A   BROKEN   TOOL 

"A  plague  o'  both  your  houses ! 
They  have  made  worms'  meat  of  me." 

— SHAKESPEARE. 

It  had  been  close  upon  half-past  two  when  Harney 
had  left  the  house  in  Bush  Street.  Essex  at  the  win 
dow  had  heard  the  sound  of  his  retreating  feet  soon 
lost  in  the  rush  of  the  rain,  and  had  then  returned  to 
the  fire.  He  had  made  a  close  calculation  of  the  time 
Harney  should  take.  To  go  and  come  ought  not  to 
occupy  more  than  a  half-hour.  The  theft,  itself,  if  no 
mischances  occurred,  should  be  accomplished  in  ten 
or  fifteen  minutes. 

As  the  hands  of  the  clock  on  the  table  drew  near 
three,  the  man  rose  from  his  post  by  the  fire  and  began 
to  move  restlessly  about  the  room.  The  house  was 
wrapped  in  the  dead  stillness  of  sleep,  round  which  the 
turmoil  of  the  storm  circled  and  upon  which  it  seemed 
to  press.  Pausing  to  listen  he  could  hear  the  creaks 
and  groan  of  the  old  walls,  as  the  wind  buffeted  them. 
Once,  thinking  he  heard  a  furtive  step,  he  went  to 
the  door,  opened  it  and  peered  out  into  the  blackness 
of  the  hall.  The  stairs  still  creaked  as  if  to  a  light 
ascending  foot,  but  his  eyes  encountered  nothing  but 

426 


A   BROKEN   TOOL  427 

the  impenetrable  darkness,  charged  with  the  familiar 
smell  of  stale  smoke. 

Back  in  his  room  he  went  to  the  window  and  throw 
ing  it  wide,  leaned  out  listening.  The  rain  fell  with 
a  continuous  drumming  rustle,  through  which  the 
chinks  and  gurgles  of  water  caught  in  small  channels 
penetrated  with  a  near-by  clearness.  Here  and  there 
the  darkness  broke  away  in  splinters  from  a  sputter 
ing  lamp,  and  where  its  light  touched,  everything 
gleamed  and  glistened.  Gusts  of  wind  rose  and  fell, 
tore  the  wet  bushes  in  the  garden  below,  and  banged 
a  shutter  on  an  adjacent  house. 

Essex  left  the  window,  drawing  the  curtain  to  shut 
its  light  from  the  street.  It  was  a  quarter  past  three. 
If  at  four  Harney  had  not  returned  he  would  go  after 
him.  The  thief  might  easily  have  missed  his  footing 
in  the  tree  and  have  fallen,  and  be  lying  beneath  it, 
stunned,  dead  perhaps,  the  papers  in  his  hand. 

The  clock  hands  moved  on  toward  twenty — twenty- 
five  minutes  past.  The  creaking  came  from  the  stairs 
again,  exactly,  to  the  listening  ear,  like  the  soft  sound 
of  a  cautiously-mounting  step.  From  the  cupboard 
came  a  curious  loud  tick  and  then  a  series  of  rending 
cracks.  It  made  Essex  start  guiltily,  and  swearing 
under  his  breath,  he  again  turned  toward  the  window 
and,  as  he  did  so,  caught  the  sound  of  hurrying  feet. 
He  drew  the  curtain  and  leaned  out.  Above  the  up 
roar  of  the  night  he  heard  the  quick,  regular  thud  of 
the  feet  of  a  runner,  rushing  onward  through  the 
storm,  and  then,  across  the  gleam  of  a  lamp,  a  dark 
figure  shot,  with  head  down,  flying. 

He  dropped  the  curtain  and  waited,  immense  relief 


428  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

at  his  heart.  In  a  moment  he  heard  the  footsteps  stop 
at  the  gate,  furtively  ascend  the  stairs  of  the  two  ter 
races,  and  then  the  steajthy  grating  of  the  door.  He 
silently  pushed  his  own  door  open  that  the  light  might 
guide  the  ascending  man,  and  he  heard  Harney's  loud 
breathing  as  he  crept  up. 

The  thief  rose  up  out  of  the  gulf  of  darkness  like 
an  apparition  of  terror.  He  dropped  into  a  chair,  his 
face  gray,  white  and  pinched,  the  sound  of  his  rasp 
ing  breaths,  drawn  with  pain  from  the  bottom  of  his 
lungs,  filling  the  room.  He  was  incapable  of  speech, 
and  Essex,  pouring  him  out  whisky,  was  forced  to  take 
the  glass  from  his  shaking  hand  and  hold  it  to  his 
lips.  From  his  soaked  clothes  and  the  cap  that 
crowned  his  head,  like  a  saturated  woolen  rag,  water 
streamed.  But  the  rain  had  not  been  able  to  efface 
from  his  coat  a  caking  of  mud  that  half-covered  one 
arm  and  shoulder,  and  there  was  blood  on  one  of  his 
hands.  He  had  evidently  fallen. 

"Have  you  got  it?"  said  Essex,  putting  the  glass 
down. 

The  other  nodded  and  let  his  head  sink  on  the  chair- 
back. 

"I'm  dead,"  he  gasped,  "but  I  done  it." 

"Where  is  it  ?    Give  it  to  me." 

The  man  made  a  faint  movement  of  assent,  but 
evidently  had  not  force  enough  to  produce  the  paper 
and  lay  limp  in  the  chair,  Essex  wratching  him  im 
patiently.  Presently  he  put  his  feeble  hand  out  for 
the  glass  and  drank  again.  The  rattling  loudness  of 
his  breathing  moderated.  Without  moving  his  head 
he  turned  his  eyes  on  Essex  and  said : 


A   BROKEN   TOOL  429 

"I'm  most  killed — I'm  all  shook  up.  I  fell  coming 
down  the  tree,  some  way — I  don't  know  how  far — but 
I  got  it  all  right.  She  fought  like  a  wildcat,  tried  to 
burn  it — but  I  got  it.  Then  she  hollered  and  a  man 
answered.  I  knew  it  was  a  man's  voice,  and  I  made 
a  dash  for  the  winder  only  jest  in  time.  I'm  cut 
somewheres — " 

He  raised  the  hand  with  the  blood  on  it  and  fumbled 
at  his  coat-sleeve.  The  other  hand  was  smeared  with 
blood  from  the  contact. 

"Like  a  pig,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice,  and  pulled  out 
a  rag  of  handkerchief  which  he  tried  to  push  up  his 
sleeve ;  "I'm  cut  somewheres  all  right,  but  I  don't  know 
where." 

"Give  me  the  paper  and  take  your  things  off.  You're 
dripping  all  over  everything,"  said  Essex,  extending 
his  hand. 

Harney  sat  up. 

"I  dunno  how  I  done  it,"  he  said ;  "how  I  got  down. 
The  man  was  right  on  my  heels.  When  I  fell  I  saw 
him,  pullin'  her  up  on  her  feet — I  saw  that  through  the 
winder.  Then  I  riz  up  and  I  went — God,  how  I  went !" 

He  had  stuffed  his  handkerchief  up  his  sleeve  by  this 
time,  and  now  put  his  bloody  tremulous  hand  into  the 
outer  breast-pocket  of  his  coat.  As  the  hand  fumbled 
about  the  opening  he  said : 

"I  didn't  stop  to  look  no  more  nor  take  no  risks.  I 
wanted  to  git  away  from  thar  and  I  tell  you  I  lit  out, 
and—" 

He  stopped,  his  jaw  dropped,  his  nerveless  figure 
stiffened,  a  look  of  animal  terror  came  into  his  eyes. 

"Where  is  it  ?"  he  almost  yelled,  staring  at  Essex. 


430  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"How  the  devil  should  I  know !  Where  did  you  put 
it?  Isn't  it  there?" 

Essex  himself  had  suddenly  paled.  He  stood  erect 
before  the  crouched  and  trembling  figure  of  his  part 
ner,  his  eyes  fiercely  intense. 

"It  ain't  here,"  cried  Harney,  his  hand  clawing  about 
in  the  pocket.  "It  ain't  there.  Oh  Lordy,  Lordy! 
I've  lost  it!  It's  gone.  It  fell  out  when  I  came  off 
the  tree.  I  fell.  I  told  you  I  fell.  Didn't  I  tell  you 
I  fell  ?"  he  shouted,  as  if  he  had  been  contradicted. 

He  rose  up,  his  face  pasty  white,  wringing  his  hands 
like  a  woman.  There  was  something  grotesque  and 
almost  overdone  in  his  terror,  but  his  pallor  and  the 
fear  in  his  eyes  were  real. 

"Lost  it !"  cried  Essex.  "No  more  of  those  lies ! 
Give  me  the  paper,  you  dog." 

"Don't  you  hear  me  say  I  ain't  got  it?  Ain't  I  told 
you  I  fell  ?  When  I  jumped  for  the  tree  I  jest  smashed 
it  down  into  my  pocket.  I  had  to  have  both  hands  to 
climb.  And  I  suppose  I  ain't  pressed  it  in  tight  enough. 
God,  man,  it  was  ten  years  in  San  Quentin  for  me  if 
I'd  lost  two  minutes." 

Essex  drew  closer,  his  mouth  tight,  his  eyes  fixed 
with  a  fiercely  compelling  gaze  on  the  wretch  before 
him. 

"Don't  think  you  can  make  anything  by  stealing  that 
paper.  Give  it  up ;  give  it  up  now  ;  I've  got  you  here, 
and  I'll  know  what  you've  done  with  it  before  you  leave 
or  you'll  never  leave  at  all." 

"I  lost  it,  and  that's  what  I  done  with  it.  If  you 
want  it,  come  on  with  me  now  and  look  round  under 
that  tree.  Ain't  you  understood  I  fell  sideways  from 


A   BROKEN   TOOL  431 

the  branch  to  the  ground?  Look  at  my  hand — "  he 
held  up  his  arm,  pulling  the  muddy  sleeve  back  from 
the  blood-stained  wrist. 

"Where  is  it?"  said  Essex,  without  moving.  "You 
were  gone  nearly  an  hour.  Where  have  you  hidden 
it?" 

"Nowheres.  It  took  time.  I  had  to  clim'  up  care 
ful,  'cause  she  had  a  light  burning,  and  I  thought  she 
was  awake.  Why  can't  you  believe  me?  What  can 
I  do  with  it  alone  ?" 

"You  can  blackmail  Mrs.  Shackleton  well  enough 
alone.  Give  me  that  paper,  or  tell  me  where  you  put  it, 
or,  by  God,  I'll  kill  you !" 

Fear  of  the  man  that  owned  him  gave  Harney  the  air 
of  guilt.  He  backed  away  in  an  access  of  pallid  ter 
ror,  shouting : 

"I  ain't  lying.  Why  can't  yer  believe  me?  It  took 
time — it  took  time!  Ain't  I  told  you  I  fell?  Look  at 
the  mud;  and  feel,  feel  in  every  pocket."  He  seized 
on  them  and  tore  the  insides  outward.  "I'm  tellin'  you 
the  whole  truth.  I  ain't  got  it." 

"Where  is  it,  then?  You'll  tell  me  where  you've 
hidden  it,  or — " 

Essex  made  a  sudden  leap  forward  and  caught  the 
man  by  his  neck-cloth  and  collar.  In  his  blind  alarm 
Harney  was  given  fictitious  strength,  and  he  tore  him 
self  loose  and  rushed  for  the  door.  Essex's  hat,  coat  and 
stick  lay  on  the  table.  Without  thought  or  premedita 
tion  their  owner  seized  the  cane — a  heavy  malacca — by 
the  end,  flew  round  the  table,  and  as  Harney  turned  the 
door-handle,  brought  the  knob  of  the  loaded  cane  down 
on  the  crown  of  his  head. 


432  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

It  struck  with  a  thud  and  sent  the  water  squirting 
from  the  saturated  cap.  The  thief,  without  cry  or 
word,  spun  round,  waving  his  hands  in  the  air,  and 
then  fell  heavily  face  downward.  For  a  moment  he 
quivered,  and  once  or  twice  made  a  convulsive  move 
ment,  then  lay  still,  the  water  running  from  his  clothes 
along  the  floor. 

With  the  cane  still  in  his  hand,  Essex  came  around 
the  table  and  looked  at  him.  For  a  space  he  stood 
staring,  his  hand  resting  on  the  edge  of  the  table,  his 
neck  craned  forward,  his  face  set  in  a  rigid  intensity 
of  observation.  The  sudden  silence  that  had  succeeded 
to  the  loud  tones  of  Harney's  voice  was  singularly 
deep  and  solemn.  The  room  seemed  held  in  a  spell  of 
stillness,  almost  awful  in  its  suddenness  and  isolation. 

"Get  up,"  he  said  in  a  low  voice.     "Harney,  get  up." 

There  was  no  response,  and  he  leaned  forward  and 
pushed  at  the  motionless  figure  with  the  cane. 

"Damn !"  he  said  under  his  breath,  "he's  fainted." 

And  throwing  the  cane  away,  he  approached  the 
man  and  bent  over  him.  There  was  no  sound  of 
breathing  or  pulse  of  life  about  the  sodden  figure  with 
its  hidden  face.  Drops  formed  on  Essex's  forehead 
as  he  turned  it  over.  Then,  as  it  confronted  him,  livid 
with  fallen  jaw  and  a  gleam  of  white  between  the 
wrinkled  eyelid,  the  drops  ran  down  his  face. 

With  a  hand  that  shook  as  Harney's  had  a  few  mo 
ments  before  he  felt  the  pulse  and  then  tore  the  shirt 
open  and  tried  the  heart.  His  face  was  white  as  the 
man's  on  the  floor  as  he  poured  whisky  down  the 
throat  that  refused  to  swallow.  Finally,  tearing  off 
his  coat,  he  knelt  beside  his  victim  and  tried  every 


A   BROKEN   TOOL  433 

means  in  his  power  to  bring  back  life  into  the  misera 
ble  body  in  which  he  had  only  recognized  a  tool  of  his 
own.  But  there  was  no  response.  The  minutes  ticked 
on,  and  there  was  no  glimmer  of  intelligence  in  the 
cold  indifference  of  the  eyes,  no  warmth  round  the 
stilled  heart,  no  flutter  of  breath  at  the  slack,  gray  lips. 

The  night  was  still  dark,  the  rain  in  his  ears,  when 
he  rose  to  his  feet.  A  horror  unlike  anything  he  had 
even  imagined  was  on  him.  All  the  things  in  life  he 
had  struggled  for  seemed  shriveled  to  nothing.  The 
whole  worth  of  his  existence  was  contained  in  the  un 
lovely  body  on  the  floor.  To  bring  life  back  to  it 
he  would  have  given  his  dearest  ambition — sacri 
ficed  love,  money,  happiness — all  for  which  he  had 
held  life  valuable,  and  thought  himself  blessed.  What 
a  few  hours  before  were  ends  to  struggle  and  sin  for 
seemed  now  of  no  moment  to  him.  Mariposa  had 
faded  to  a  dim,  undesired  shadow ;  the  millions  she 
stood  for  to  dross  he  would  have  passed  without  a 
thought.  How  readily  would  he  have  given  it  all  to 
bring  back  the  breath  to  the  creature  he  had  held  as  a 
worm  beneath  his  foot ! 

He  seized  the  table-cloth  and  threw  it  over  the  face 
whose  solemn,  tragic  calm  filled  him  with  a  sick  dread. 
Then  with  breathless  haste  he  flung  some  clothes  into 
a  valise  and  made  the  fire  burn  high  with  the  letters 
and  papers  he  threw  on  it  at  intervals.  The  first  carts 
of  the  morning  had  begun  their  rattling  course  through 
the  stirred  darkness  when  he  crept  out,  a  haggard, 
hunted  man. 

He  had  to  hide  himself  in  unfrequented  corners, 
cower  beneath  the  shadow  of  trees  on  park  benches 


434  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

till  the  light  strengthened  and  morning  shook  the  city 
into  life.  Then,  as  its  reawakening  tides  began  to 
surge  round  him,  he  made  a  furtive  way — for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  fearful  of  his  fellow  men — to  the 
railway  station,  and  there  took  the  earliest  south-bound 
train  for  the  Mexican  border. 

The  fire  had  died  down,  the  leaden  light  of  coming 
day  was  filtering  in  through  the  crack  between  the 
half-drawn  curtains,  when  the  shrouded  shape  on  the 
floor  moved  and  a  deep  groan  broke  upon  the  stillness. 
Another  followed  it,  groans  of  physical  anguish  beat 
ing  on  awakening  consciousness.  An  early  riser  from 
the  floor  above  heard  them  as  he  stole  downward, 
stopped,  listened,  knocked,  then  receiving  no  reply, 
opened  the  door  and  peered  fearfully  in.  In  the  dim 
room,  cut  with  a  sword  of  faint  light,  he  saw  the 
covered  shape,  and,  as  he  stood  terrified,  heard  the 
groan  repeated  and  saw  the  drapery  twitched.  Shout 
ing  his  fears  over  the  balustrade,  he  rushed  in,  flung 
the  curtains  wide,  tore  off  the  table-cloth,  and  in  the 
rush  of  pallid  light,  saw  Harney,  leaden  eyed,  withered 
to  a  waxen  pallor,  smeared  with  the  blood  of  the  cut 
wrist  which  he  feebly  moved,  struggling  back  to  ex 
istence. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

HAVE   YOU    COME   AT   LAST 

"Yesterday  this  day's  madness  did  prepare." 

— OMAR  KHAYYAM. 

At  ten  o'clock  Barren  returned  to  the  Garcia  house. 
His  search  for  Mariposa  in  such  accustomed  haunts  as 
the  Mercantile  Library,  the  shops  on  Kearney  Street, 
and  Mrs.  Willers',  had  been  fruitless.  Mrs.  Willers 
was  again  at  The  Trumpet  office,  where  another  and 
more  important  portion  of  the  Woman's  Page  was  go 
ing  to  press,  but  Edna  was  at  home,  and  told  Barron 
that  neither  she  nor  her  mother  had  seen  Mariposa 
since  the  lesson  of  the  day  before. 

In  returning  to  the  house  he  had  hopes  of  finding  her 
there.  From  the  first  his  anxiety  had  been  keen. 
Now,  as  he  put  his  key  in  the  lock,  it  clutched  his  heart 
with  a  suffocating  force.  The  house  was  silent  as  he 
entered,  and  then  the  sound  of  his  step  in  the  hall 
called  the  head  of  young  Mrs.  Garcia  to  the  opened 
door  of  the  kitchen.  The  first  glimpse  of  her  face 
told  him  Mariposa  had  not  returned. 

"Have  you  got.  her?"  cried  the  young  woman 
eagerly. 

"No,"  he  answered,  his  voice  sounding  colorless  and 
flat.  "I  thought  she  might  be  back  here," 

435 


436  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

Mrs.  Garcia  shook  her  head  and  withdrew  it.  He 
followed  her  into  the  kitchen,  where  she  and  the  senora 
were  sitting  by  the  stove.  A  large  fire  was  burning, 
the  room  was  warm  and  bright — the  trim,  finically 
neat  kitchen  of  a  clean  Chinaman.  To  the  senora's 
quick  phrase  of  inquiry,  the  younger  woman  answered 
with  a  sentence  in  Spanish.  For  a  moment  the  silence 
of  sick  anxiety  held  the  trio. 

"Did  you  go  to  Mrs.  Willers'?"  said  young  Mrs. 
Garcia,  trying  to  speak  with  some  lightness  of  tone. 

"Yes;  she's  not  been  there  since  yesterday.  I've 
been  everywhere  I  could  think  of  where  it  was  likely 
she  would  be.  I  couldn't  find  a  trace  of  her." 

"Then's  she's  gone  to  Europe,  or  is  going  to-mor 
row,  as  she  told  Pierpont.  She  took  her  money.  We 
looked  after  you'd  gone,  and  it  wasn't  there." 

"It'll  be  too  late  to  find  out  to-night  if  she's  gone. 
The  ticket  offices  are  closed.  I  can't  think  she's  done 
that — without  a  word  to  any  one.  It's  not  like  her." 

The  senora  here  asked  what  they  said.  Barron,  who 
spoke  Spanish  indifferently,  signaled  to  the  young 
woman  to  answer  for  him.  She  did  so,  the  senora 
listening  intently.  At  the  end  of  her  daughter-in- 
law's  speech  she  shook  her  head. 

"No,  she  has  not  gone,"  she  said  slowly  in  Spanish. 
"She  could  not  take  that  journey.  She  was  not  able 
— she  was  sick." 

"Sick,  and  out  on  such  a  night  with  all  that  money !" 
moaned  her  daughter-in-law. 

Barron  got  up  with  a  smothered  ejaculation.  He 
knew  more  than  either  of  the  women.  The  attempt  at 
robbery  the  night  before  had  failed.  To-night  the  girl 


HAVE   YOU  -COME   AT   LAST         437 

herself  had  disappeared.  What  might  it  all  mean? 
He  was  afraid  to  think. 

"I'm  going  out  again,"  he  said.  "I'll  be  in  probably 
in  four  or  five  hours  to  see  if,  by  any  chance,  she's  come 
back.  You  have  everything  ready — fires  and  warm 
clothes  and  things  to  eat  in  case  I  bring  her  with  me. 
The  rain's  worse  than  ever.  Ching  says  she  had  no 
umbrella." 

Without  more  conversation  he  left,  the  two  women 
bestirring  themselves  to  make  ready  the  supper  he  had 
ordered.  At  three  o'clock  he  returned  again  to  find 
the  senora  sitting  alone,  by  the  ruddy  stove,  Mrs. 
Garcia,  the  younger,  being  asleep  on  a  sofa  in  the 
boys'  room.  The  old  lady  persuaded  him  to  drink  a 
cup  of  coffee  she  had  kept  warm,  and,  as  she  gave  it 
him,  looked  with  silent  compassion  into  his  haggard 
face. 

When  day  broke  he  had  not  again  appeared.  By 
this  time  the  household  was  in  a  ferment  of  open 
alarm.  The  boys  were  retained  from  school,  as  it  was 
felt  they  might  be  needed  for  messages.  Pierpont  un 
dertook  to  visit  all  Mariposa's  pupils,  in  the  dim  hope 
of  finding  through  them  some  clue  to  her  movements, 
though  it  was  well  known  she  was  on  intimate  terms 
with  none  of  them.  Soon  after  breakfast  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers  appeared,  uneasy,  and  by  the  time  the  now  weep 
ing  Mrs.  Garcia  had  told  her  all,  pale  and  deeply  dis 
turbed. 

She  repaired  to  The  Trumpet  office  without  loss  of 
time,  and  there  acquainted  her  chief  with  the  story  of 
Miss  Moreau's  disappearance,  not  neglecting  to  men 
tion  the  burglary  of  the  night  before,  which  even  to 


438  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

the  women,  having  no  knowledge  of  its  real  import, 
seemed  to  indicate  a  sinister  connection  with  subse 
quent  events.  Winslow  did  not  disappoint  Mrs.  Wil- 
lers  by  pooh-poohing  the  matter,  as  she  had  half  im 
agined  he  would ;  a  young  lady's  disappearance  for 
twelve  hours  not  being  a  subject  for  such  tragic  con 
sternation.  He  seemed  extremely  worried — in  fact, 
showed  an  anxiety  that  struck  the  head  of  the  Woman's 
Page  as  almost  odd.  He  assured  her  that  if  Miss 
Moreau  was  not  heard  from  that  day  by  mid-day  he 
would  offer  secretly  to  the  police  department  the  largest 
reward  ever  given  in  San  Francisco,  for  any  trace  or 
tidings  of  her. 

Meantime  Barron,  having  assured  himself  by  visits 
to  all  the  ticket  offices  that  she  had  not  left  the  city  on 
any  train,  had  finally  taken  his  case  to  the  police.  It 
had  been  in  their  hands  only  an  hour  or  two,  when 
young  Shackleton's  offer  of  what,  in  even  those  ex 
travagant  days  seemed  an  enormous  reward,  was  com 
municated  to  the  department.  It  put  life  into  the 
somewhat  dormant  energies  of  the  officers  detailed  on 
the  case.  Mariposa  had  not  been  missing  twenty-four 
hours  when  the  search  for  her  was  spreading  over 
the  face  of  the  city,  where  she  had  been  so  insignificant 
a  unit,  in  a  thorough  and  secret  network  of  -investiga 
tion. 

The  day  wore  away  with  maddening  slowness  to  the 
women  in  the  house,  whose  duty  it  was  to  sit  and  wait. 
To  Barron,  whose  anxiety  had  been  intensified  by  the 
torture  of  his  deeper  knowledge  of  the  girl's  strange 
circumstances,  existence  seemed  only  bearable  as  it  was 


HAVE   YOU   COME   AT    LAST         439 

directed  to  finding-  her.  He  did  not  dare  now  to  pause  or 
think.  Without  stopping  to  eat  or  rest  he  continued  his 
search,  now  with  the  detectives,  now  alone.  Several 
times  in  the  course  of  the  day  he  reappeared  at  the  Gar 
cia  house,  drawn  thither  by  the  hope  that  she  might 
have  returned.  The  senora,  with  the  curious  tranquillity 
of  the  very  old  which  seems  not  to  need  the  repairing 
processes  of  sleep  or  food,  was  always  to  be  found  sit 
ting  by  the  kitchen  stove,  upon  which  some  dish  or 
drink  simmered  for  him.  He  rarely  stopped  to  take 
either.  But  returning  in  the  early  dusk,  he  was  grate 
ful  to  find  that  she  had  a  dry  overcoat  hanging  before 
the  fire  for  him.  The  rain  still  fell  in  torrents,  and 
the  long  day  spent  at  its  mercy  had  soaked  him. 

It  was  between  ten  and  eleven  at  night  that  the  old 
lady  and  her  daughter-in-law,  sitting  before  the  stove 
as  they  had  done  the  evening  before,  again  heard  his 
step  and  his  key.  This  time  there  was  no  pretense  at 
expectation  on  either  side.  His  first  glance  inside  the 
room  showed  him  the  heavy  dejection  of  the  two  faces 
turned  toward  him.  They,  on  their  part,  saw  him 
pale  and  drawn,  as  by  a  month's  illness.  They  had 
heard  nothing.  No  investigation  of  which  they  were 
aware  had  brought  in  a  crumb  of  comfort.  He  had 
heard  worse  than  nothing.  There  had  been  talk  at  the 
police  station  that  evening  of  the  finding  of  George 
Harney,  suffering  from  concussion  of  the  brain,  and 
the  sudden  departure  of  Barry  Essex,  believed  to  be 
his  assailant. 

This  information  added  the  last  straw  to  Barren's 
agony  of  apprehension.  It  seemed  as  if  a  plot  had 


440  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

culminated  in  those  two  days,  a  plot  dark  and  inex 
plicable,  in  which  the  woman  he  loved  was  in  some 
mysterious  way  involved. 

He  was  standing  by  the  stove  responding  to  the 
somber  queries  of  the  women,  when  the  sound  of  feet 
on  the  porch  steps  suddenly  transfixed  them  all. 
Young  Mrs.  Garcia  screamed,  while  the  old  lady  sat 
with  head  bent  sidewise  listening.  Before  Barren 
could  get  to  the  door  a  soft  ring  at  the  bell  had  drawn 
another  scream  from  the  younger  woman,  who,  never 
theless,  followed  him  and  stood  peeping  into  the  hall, 
clinging  to  the  doorpost. 

The  opened  door  sent  a  flood  of  light  over  three 
figures  huddled  in  the  glass  porch — two  men,  a  detec 
tive  and  policeman,  Barren  already  knew,  and  a  third, 
a  stranger  to  him,  whose  face  against  the  shadowy 
background  looked  fresh  and  boyish. 

"Ah,  Mr.  Barren,  we're  lucky  to  strike  you  this  way 
at  the  first  shot,"  said  the  detective.  "We  think  we've 
found  the  lady." 

"Found  her?     Where?     Have  you  got  her  there?" 

"No ;  we're  not  certain  yet  if  it's  the  right  one." 

The  man,  as  he  spoke,  entered  the  hall,  the  police 
man  and  the  stranger  following  him.  Under  the  flare 
of  the  two  gas-jets  they  looked  big,  ungainly  figures 
in  their  smoking  rubber  capes  that  ran  rillets  of  water 
on  the  floor.  The  third,  revealed  in  the  full  light,  was 
a  boy  of  some  fourteen  or  fifteen  years,  well  dressed 
and  with  the  air  of  a  gentleman. 

"This  gentleman  came  to  the  station  a  half  hour 
ago,"  said  the  policeman,  indicating  the  stranger,  "with 
a  story  of  finding  a  lady  on  his  own  grounds,  and  we 


HAVE   YOU   COME   AT   LAST         441 

thought  from  his  description  it  was  the  one  you're  look 
ing  for." 

Barren  directed  on  the  youth  a  glance  that  would 
have  pried  open  the  lips  of  the  Sphinx. 

"What  does  she  look  like?     Where  is  she?" 

"She's  in  our  garden,"  said  the  boy,  "under  some 
trees.  She  looks  tall  and  has  on  black  clothes,  and  has 
dark  red  hair  and  a  very  white  face." 

Mrs.  Garcia  gave  a  loud  cry  from  the  background. 

"It's  Mariposa  sure,"  she  screamed.     "Is  she  alive?" 

"Alive !"  echoed  the  youth.  "Oh,  yes,  she's  quite 
alive,  but  I  don't  know  whether  she's  exactly  in  her 
right  mind.  She's  sort  of  queer." 

Barren  had  brushed  past  him  into  the  streaming 
night. 

"Come  on,"  he  shouted  back.  "Good  Lord,  come 
quick!" 

At  the  foot  of  the  zigzag  stairs  he  saw  the  two  gleam 
ing  lights  of  a  hack.  With  the  other  men  clattering 
at  his  heels,  he  dashed  down  the  steps,  and  was  in  it, 
chafing  and  swearing,  while  they  were  fumbling  for 
the  latch  of  the  gate. 

As  the  boy,  after  giving  the  coachman  an  address, 
scrambled  in  beside  him,  he  said  peremptorily : 

"When  did  you  find  her  ?     Tell  me  everything." 

"About  two  hours  ago.  My  dog  found  her.  I  live, 
I  and  my  mother,  on  the  slope  of  Russian  Hill.  It's 
quite  a  big  place  with  a  lot  of  trees.  I  went  down  to 
get  Jack  (that's  my  dog)  at  the  vet's,  where  he's  been 
for  a  week,  and  I  was  bringing  him  home.  When  we 
got  to  the  top  of  the  steps  he  began  sniffing  round  and 
barking,  and  then  he  ran  to  a  place  where  there's  a 


442  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

little  sort  of  bunch  of  fir-trees  and  barked  and  jumped 
round,  and  went  in  among  the  trees.  I  followed  him 
to  see  what  was  up,  and  all  of  a  sudden  I  heard  some 
one  say  from  under  the  trees  :  'Oh,  it's  only  a  dog.'  I  was 
scared  and  ran  into  the  house  and  got  a  lamp,  and  when 
I  came  out  with  my  mother,  and  we  went  in  among  the 
trees,  there  was  a  woman  in  there,  who  was  lying  on 
the  ground.  When  she  saw  us  she  sort  of  sat  up,  as 
if  she'd  been  asleep,  and  said:  'Is  it  Sunday  yet?' 
We  saw  her  distinctly;  she  was  staring  right  at  us. 
She  didn't  look  as  if  she  was  crazy,  but  we  both  thought 
she  was.  She  was  terribly  white.  We  knew  she 
couldn't  be  drunk,  because  she  was  like  a  lady — she 
spoke  that  way." 

"And  then — and  then,"  said  Barron,  "what  did  she 
do?" 

"She  said  again,  'It  isn't  Sunday  yet?'  and  mother 
said,  'No,  not  yet,'  and  we  went  away.  I  ran  to  the 
police  office,  but  we  left  one  of  the  Chinamen  to  watch 
so  she  wouldn't  get  away,  'cause  we  didn't  know  what 
was  the  matter  with  her.  We'll  be  there  in  a  minute 
now.  It  isn't  far." 

The  hack,  which  had  been  rattling  round  corners  at 
top  speed,  now  began  to  ascend.  Barron  could  see 
the  gaunt  flank  of  Russian  Hill  looming  above  them, 
with  here  and  there  a  house  hanging  to  a  ridge  or 
balanced  on  a  slope.  The  lights  of  the  town  dropped 
away  on  their  right  in  a  series  of  sparkling  terraces. 

"Do  you  guess  it's  the  lady  you're  hunting?"  said 
the  policeman  politely. 

"I'm  almost  certain  it  is,"  answered  Barron.  "Can't 
you  make  this  man  go  faster  ?" 


HAVE   YOU   COME   AT   LAST         443 

"The  hill's  pretty  steep  here,"  said  the  guardian  of 
the  city's  peace.  "I  don't  seem  to  think  he  could 
do  it." 

"We're  almost  there,"  said  the  boy;  "it's  just  that 
house  where  the  aloe  is — there  on  the  top  of  that  high 
wall." 

Barron  looked  in  the  direction,  and  saw  high  above 
them,  on  the  top  of  a  wall  like  the  rampart  of  a  fortress, 
the  faint  outline  of  a  house  and  the  black  masses  of 
trees  etched  against  the  only  slightly  paler  sky. 

"I  don't  see  any  aloe,"  he  growled;  "is  that  the 
house  you  mean  ?" 

"That's  it,"  said  the  boy.  "I  guess  it's  too  dark  for 
the  aloe  to-night." 

With  a  scrambling  and  jolting  the  horses  began  what 
appeared  an  even  steeper  climb  than  that  of  the  block 
before.  The  beasts  seemed  to  dig  their  hoofs  into  the 
crevices  between  the  cobbles  and  to  clamber  perilously 
up.  With  an  oath  Barron  kicked  open  the  door  and 
sprang  out. 

"Come  on,  boy,"  he  shouted.  "I  can't  stand  this 
snail  of  a  carriage  any  longer."  And  he  set  out  running 
up  the  hill. 

The  boy,  who  was  light  of  foot  and  young,  kept  up 
with  him,  but  the  two  heavier  men,  who  had  followed, 
were  left  behind,  puffing  and  blowing  in  the  darkness. 

Suddenly  the  great  wall,  at  the  base  of  which  they 
ran,  was  crossed  by  a  flight  of  stairs  that  made  two 
oblique  stripes  across  its  face. 

"Up  the  stairs,"  said  the  boy. 

And  Barron,  without  reply,  turned  and  began  the 
ascent  at  the  same  breakneck  speed. 


444  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"You  may  as  well  let  me  go  first,"  gasped  his  con 
ductor  from  behind  him.  "You  don't  know  the  way, 
and  you  might  scare  the  Chinaman.  He  said  he  had 
a  gun." 

Barron  stood  aside  for  him  to  pass  and  then  fol 
lowed  the  nimble  figure  as  it  darted  up  the  second 
flight.  The  boy  was  evidently  nearing  the  top,  when 
he  sang  out : 

"Ah,  there,  Lee !     It's  me  coming  back." 

There  was  an  unmistakable  Chinese  guttural  from 
somewhere,  and  then  Barron  himself  rose  above  the 
stair-top.  A  black  mass  of  garden  lay  before  him, 
with  the  bulk  of  a  large  house  a  short  distance  back. 
Many  windows  were  lit,  and  in  one  he  saw  a  woman 
standing.  Their  light  fell  out  over  the  garden,  barring 
it  with  long  rectangular  stripes  of  brilliance.  The  wild 
bark  of  the  dog  rose  from  the  house  and  on  the  unseen 
walk  the  Chinaman's  footsteps  could  be  heard  crunch 
ing  the  pebbles. 

"Is  she  there  yet,  Lee?"  said  the  boy  in  a  hissing 
whisper. 

The  Chinaman's  affirmative  grunt  rose  from  the 
darkness  of  massed  trees,  into  which  his  footsteps 
continued  to  retreat. 

"This  way,"  said  his  conductor  to  Barron.  "But 
hang  it  all,  it's  so  dark  we  can't  see. 

"Where  is  she?"  said  Barron.  "Never  mind  the 
light.  Show  me  where  she  is.  Mariposa!"  he  said 
suddenly,  in  a  voice  which,  though  low,  had  a  quality 
so  thrilling  it  might  have  penetrated  the  ear  of  death. 

The  garden,  rain-swept  and  rustling,  grew  quiet. 


HAVE   YOU   COME  AT   LAST         '445 

The  sound  of  the  Chinaman's  footsteps  ceased,  even 
the  panting  breath  of  the  boy  was  suddenly  suspended. 

In  this  moment  of  pause,  when  nature  seemed  to 
quell  her  riot  to  listen,  a  woman's  voice,  sweet  and  soft, 
rose  out  of  impenetrable  darkness: 

"Who  called  me?" 

The  sound  broke  the  agony  that  had  congealed  Bar 
ren's  heart.  With  a  shout  he  answered : 

"It's  I,  dearest.     Where  are  you  ?     Come  to  me." 

The  voice  rose  again,  faint,  but  with  joy  in  it. 

"Oh,  have  you  come — have  you  come,  at  last !" 

He  made  a  rush  forward  into  the  blackness  before 
him.  At  the  same  moment  the  two  men  rose,  spent 
and  breathless,  from  the  stairs.  The  boy  was  behind 
Barren,  and  they  behind  the  boy. 

"Where  are  you  ?  Where  are  you  ?"  they  heard  him 
cry,  as  he  crashed  forward  through  shrubs  and  flower 
beds. 

Then  suddenly  the  policeman  drew  the  small  lantern 
he  had  carried  from  beneath  his  cape  and  shot  the 
slide.  A  cube  of  clear,  steady  light  cut  through  the 
inky  wall  in  front  of  them.  For  a  second  they  all 
stopped,  the  man  sending  the  cylinder  of  radiance  over 
the  shrubs  and  trees  in  swift  sweeps.  In  one  of  these 
it  crossed  a  white  face,  quivered  and  rested  on  it. 
Barren  gave  a  wild  cry  and  rushed  forward. 

She  was,  as  the  boy  described,  crouched  under  a 
clump  of  small  fir-trees,  the  lower  limbs  of  which  had 
been  removed.  The  place  was  sheltered  from  observa 
tion  from  the  house  and  the  intrusion  of  the  elements. 
As  the  light  fell  on  her  she  was  kneeling,  evidently 


446  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

having  been  drawn  to  that  posture  by  Barren's  voice. 
The  light  revealed  her  as  hatless,  with  loosened  hair, 
her  face  pinched,  her  eyes  large  and  wild. 

As  she  saw  Barren  she  shrieked  and  tried  to  move 
forward,  but  was  unable  to  and  held  out  her  arms.  He 
was  at  her  side  in  a  moment,  his  arms  about  her,  strain 
ing  her  to  him,  his  lips,  between  frantic  kisses,  saying 
words  only  for  him  and  for  her. 

The  policeman,  with  a  soft  ejaculation,  turned  the 
lantern,  and  its  cube  of  light  fell  into  the  heart  of  a  bed 
of  petunias ;  then  the  two  men  and  the  boy  stood  look 
ing  at  it  silently  for  a  space. 

Presently  they  heard  Barren  say:  "Come,  we  must 
go.  I  must  take  you  home  at  once.  Turn  the  light 
this  way,  please." 

The  light  came  back  upon  her.  She  was  on  her  feet, 
holding  to  him. 

"Is  it  Sunday  yet?"  she  said,  looking  at  them  with 
an  affrighted  air. 

"That's  what  she  keeps  asking  all  the  time,"  said  the 
boy  in  a  whisper. 

"No,"  said  Barren,  "it's  Friday.  What  do  you  ex 
pect  on  Sunday  ?" 

"Only  Friday,"  she  said,  hanging  back.  "I  thought 
I'd  hide  here  till  Sunday  was  over." 

Without  answering,  he  put  his  arm  about  her  and 
drew  her  forward.  At  the  steps  she  hesitated  again, 
and  he  lifted  her  and  carried  her  down,  the  policeman 
preceding  with  the  lantern.  The  men  helped  him  into 
the  carriage,  not  saying  much,  while  the  boy  stood  with 
his  now  liberated  dog  at  the  top  of  the  steps  and 


HAVE   YOU   COME   AT   LAST         447 

shouted,  "Good  night."  Barren  hardly  spoke  to  any 
of  them.  A  vague  thought  crossed  his  mind  that  he 
would  go  to  see  the  boy  some  day  and  thank  him. 

She  lay  with  her  head  on  his  shoulder,  and  as  the 
carriage  passed  the  first  lamp  of  the  route  he  leaned 
forward  eagerly  to  scan  her  face.  It  was  haggard, 
white  and  thin,  as  by  a  long  illness.  He  could  not 
speak  for  a  moment,  could  only  hold  her  in  his  arms 
as  if  thus  to  wind  her  round  with  the  symbol  of  his 
love. 

Presently  she  groaned,  and  he  said : 

"Are  you  suffering?" 

"Yes,"  she  murmured ;  "always  now.  I  am  sick.  I 
don't  breathe  well  any  more.  It  hurts  in  my  chest  all 
the  time." 

"Why  did  you  hide  under  those  trees?"  he  asked. 

"I  was  too  sick  to  go  any  farther.  I  wanted  to  hide 
somewhere,  to  get  away  from  it  all,  and  anyway,  till 
Sunday  was  over.  It  was  all  to  be  published  on  Sun 
day,  you  know.  Everything  was  ruined.  My  voice 
was  gone,  too.  I  saw  those  steps  in  the  dark  and 
climbed  up  and  crept  under  the  trees.  I  was  terribly 
tired,  and  it  was  very  quiet  up  there.  I  don't  remem 
ber  much  more." 

As  the  light  of  another  lamp  flashed  through  the 
window  he  could  not  bear  to  look  at  her,  but  tightened 
his  arms  about  her  and  bowed  his  face  on  her  wet  head. 

"Oh  God,  dearest,"  he  whispered,  "there  can't  be 
any  hell  worse  than  what  I've  been  in  for  the  last  two 
days." 

She  made  no  response,  but  lay  passively  against  him. 


448  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

When  the  carriage  stopped  at  the  Garcia  gate,  and  he 
told  her  they  were  home,  she  made  no  attempt  to  move, 
and  he  saw  she  was  unconscious. 

He  lifted  her  out  and  carried  her  up  the  steps.  The 
door  opened  as  he  ascended  and  revealed  the  Garcia 
family  in  the  aperture. 

"Is  she  dead?"  screamed  young  Mrs.  Garcia,  as  she 
saw  the  limp  figure  in  his  arms. 

"No,  but  sick.     You  must  get  a  doctor  at  once." 

"Oh,  how  awful  she  looks !"  cried  the  young  woman 
as  she  caught  sight  of  the  white  face  against  his  shoul 
der.  "What  are  you  going  to  do  with  her?" 

"Take  her  upstairs  now,  and  then  get  a  doctor  and 
get  her  cured,  and  when  she's  well,  marry  her." 


EPILOGUE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   PRIMA  DONNA 

"And  them 
Beside  me  singing  in  the  wilderness." 

— OMAR  KHAYYAM. 

The  plant  of  the  Silver  Star  Mine  lay  scattered  along 
the  edge  of  a  mountain  river  on  the  site  of  one  of  the 
camps  of  forty-nine.  Where  the  pioneers  had  scratched 
the  surface  with  their  picks,  their  successors  had  torn 
wounds  in  the  Sierra's  mighty  flank.  Where  once  the 
miners'  shouts  had  broken  the  quiet  harmonies  of 
stirred  pine  boughs,  and  singing  river,  the  throb  of  en 
gines  now  beat  on  the  air,  thick  with  the  dust,  noisy 
with  the  strife  of  toiling  men. 

It  was  a  morning  in  the  end  of  May.  The  mountain 
wall  was  dark  against  the  rising  sun ;  tall  fir  and  giant 
pine  stood  along  its  crest  in  inky  silhouette  thrown  out 
by  a  background  of  gold  leaf.  Here  and  there,  far  and 
aerial  in  the  clear,  cool  dawn,  a  white  peak  of  the  high 
Sierra  floated  above  the  shadows,  a  rosy  pinnacle.  The 
air  was  chill  and  faintly  touched  with  woodland  odors. 
The  expectant  hush  of  Nature  awaiting  the  miracle  of 
sunrise,  held  this  world  of  huge,  primordial  forms, 
grouped  in  colossal  indifference  round  the  swarm  of 
men  who  delved  in  its  rock-ribbed  breast. 

451 


452  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

i 

In  the  stillness  the  camp's  awakening  movements 
rose  upon  the  morning  air  with  curious  distinctness. 
Through  the  blue  shadows  in  which  it  swam  the  tall 
chimneys  soared  aloft,  sending  their  feathers  of  smoke 
up  to  the  new  day.  It  lay  in  its  hollow  like  a  picture, 
all  transparent  washes  of  amethyst  and  gray,  overlaid 
by  clear  mountain  shadows.  The  world  was  in  this 
waiting  stage  of  flushed  sky  and  shaded  earth  when 
the  superintendent's  wife  pushed  open  the  door  of  her 
house  and  with  the  cautious  tread  of  one  who  fears  to 
wake  a  sleeper,  stepped  out  on  the  balcony. 

With  her  hand  on  the  rail  she  stood,  deeply  inhaling 
the  freshness  of  the  hour.  The  superintendent's  house, 
a  one-story  cottage,  painted  white,  and  skirted  by  a 
broad  balcony,  stood  on  an  eminence  above  the  camp. 
From  its  front  steps  she  looked  down  on  the  slant  of 
many  roofs,  the  car  tracks,  and  the  red  wagon  roads 
that  wound  along  the  slopes.  Raising  her  eyes,  they 
swept  the  ramparts  of  the  everlasting  hills,  and  looking 
higher  still,  her  face  met  the  radiance  of  the  dawn. 

She  stepped  off  the  balcony  with  the  same  cautious 
tread,  and  along  the  beaten  footpath  that  led  through 
the  patch  of  garden  in  front  of  the  house.  Beyond 
this  the  path  wound  through  a  growth  of  chaparral  to 
where  the  pines  ascended  the  slopes  in  climbing  files. 
As  she  approached  she  saw  the  sky  barred  with  their 
trunks,  arrow-straight  and  bare  of  branches  to  a  great 
height.  Farther  on  she  could  see  the  long  dim  aisles, 
held  in  the  cloistral  silence  of  the  California  forest, 
shot  through  with  the  golden  glimmer  of  sunrise. 

The  joy  of  the  morning  was  in  her  heart,  and  she 
walked  forward  with  a  light  step,  humming  to  herself. 


THE    PRIMA   DONNA  453 

Two  months  before  she  had  come  here,  a  bride  from 
San  Francisco,  weak  from  illness,  pale,  hollow-eyed,  a 
shadow  of  her  former  self.  She  had  only  crept  about 
at  first,  swung  for  hours  on  the  balcony  in  her  ham 
mock,  or  sat  under  the  trees  looking  down  on  the  hive 
of  men,  where  her  husband  worked  among  his  labor 
ers.  As  her  mother  had  grown  back  to  the  fullness  of 
life  in  the  healing  breath  of  the  mountains,  so  Mari- 
posa  slowly  regained  her  old  beauty,  with  an  added 
touch  of  subtlety,  and  found  her  old  beliefs  returned  to 
her  with  a  new  significance. 

To-day  she  had  awakened  with  the  first  glimmer  of 
dawn,  and  stirred  by  a  sudden  desire  for  the  air  of  the 
morning  on  her  face  and  in  her  lungs,  had  stolen  up 
and  out.  Breathing  in  the  resinous  atmosphere  a  new 
influx  of  life  seemed  to  run  like  sap  along  her  limbs, 
and  lend  her  step  the  buoyancy  of  a  wood-nymph's. 
Her  eye  lingered  with  a  look  that  was  a  caress  on 
flower  and  tree  and  shrub.  The  song  she  had  been 
humming  passed  from  tune  to  words,  and  she  sang 
softly  as  she  brushed  through  the  chaparral,  snipping 
off  a  leaf,  bending  to  pluck  a  wild  flower,  pausing  to 
admire  the  glossy  green  of  a  manzanita  bush.  Under 
the  shadow  of  the  pines  she  halted  by  a  rugged  trunk, 
a  point  of  vantage  she  had  early  discovered,  and  lean 
ing  her  hand  on  the  bark,  surveyed  the  wild  prospect. 

The  sense  of  expectancy  in  the  air  seemed  intensi 
fied.  The  quivering  radiance  of  pink  and  gold  pulsed 
up  the  sky  from  a  point  of  concentration  which  every 
moment  brightened.  The  blue  shadows  in  the  camp 
grew  thinner,  the  little  wisps  of  mist  that  hung  over 
the  river  more  threadlike  and  phantasmal.  A  throw- 


454  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

back  to  unremembered  days  came  suddenly  upon  her 
with  a  mysterious  sense  of  familiarity.  She  seemed  to 
be  repeating  a  dear,  long  dead  experience.  The  vision 
and  the  dream  of  days  of  exquisite  well-being,  care 
free,  cherished,  were  with  her  again.  Faint  recurring 
glimpses  of  such  mornings,  strong  of  balsam  of  pine 
and  fir,  musical  with  the  sleepy  murmur  of  a  river, 
serene  and  sweet  with  an  enfolding  passion  of  love  in 
which  she  rested  secure,  rose  out  of  the  dim  places  of 
memory.  The  perfect  content  of  her  childhood  spoke 
to  her  across  the  gulf  of  years,  finding  itself  repeated 
in  her  womanhood.  The  old  joy  in  living,  the  old  thrill 
of  wonder  and  mystery,  the  old  sense  of  safety  in  a 
surrounding,  watchful  love,  were  hers  once  more. 

The  song  on  her  lips  passed  from  its  absent  under 
tone  to  notes  gradually  full  and  fuller.  It  was  the  aria 
from  "Mignon,"  and,  as  she  stood,  her  hand  on  the  tree 
trunk,  looking  down  into  the  swimming  shadows  of  the 
camp,  it  swelled  outward  in  tones  strong  and  rich,  vi 
brating  with  their  lost  force. 

Pervaded  by  a  sense  of  dreamy  happiness,  she  at  first 
failed  to  notice  the  unexpected  volume  of  sound. 
Then,  as  note  rose  upon  note,  welling  from  her  chest 
with  the  old-time,  vibrant  facility,  as  she  felt  once 
again  the  uplifting  sense  of  triumph  possess  her,  she 
realized  what  it  meant.  Dropping  her  hand  from  the 
tree  trunk  she  stood  upright,  and  facing  the  dawn, 
with  squared  shoulders  and  raised  chin,  let  her  voice 
roll  out  into  the  void  before  her. 

The  song  swelled  triumphant  like  a  hymn  of  some 
pagan  goddess  to  the  rising  sun.  In  the  stillness  of 


THE   PRIMA   DONNA  455 

the  dawn-hush,  with  the  columns  of  the  monumental 
pines  behind  her,  the  mountain  wall  and  the  glowing 
sky  in  front,  she  might  have  been  the  spirit  of  youth 
and  love  chanting  her  joy  in  a  primeval  world. 

When  the  last  note  had  died  away  she  stood  for  a 
moment  staring  before  her.  Then  suddenly  she 
wheeled,  and,  catching  up  her  skirts  with  one  hand, 
ran  back  toward  the  house,  brushing  between  the  tree 
trunks  and  through  the  chaparral  with  breathless 
haste.  As  she  emerged  from  the  thicket,  she  saw  her 
husband,  in  his  rough  mining  clothes,  standing  on  the 
top  step  of  the  balcony. 

"Gam,"  she  cried,  "Gam !" 

He  started,  saw  her,  and  then  waited  smiling  as  she 
came  running  up  the  garden  path  toward  him,  the 
blaze  of  the  sky  behind  her,  her  face  alight  with  life 
and  color. 

"Why,  dearest,  I  didn't  know  what  had  happened  to 
you,"  he  cried.  "Where  did  you  go?" 

Her  unslackened  speed  carried  her  up  the  stairs  and 
into  his  arms.  Standing  on  the  step  below  him  she 
flung  hers  round  his  shoulders,  and  holding  him  tight, 
said  breathlessly: 

"What  do  you  think  has  happened?" 

"You  met  a  bear  in  the  wood." 

"My  voice  has  come  back." 

The  two  pairs  of  eyes,  the  woman's  looking  up,  the 
man's  down,  gazed  deeply  into  each  other.  There  was 
a  moment  of  silence,  the  silence  of  people  who  are  still 
unused  to  and  a  little  overawed  by  their  happiness. 

"I  heard  you,"  he  said. 


456  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

"You  did?    From  here?" 

"Yes.  I  heard  some  one  singing  and  stood  here  lis 
tening,  watching  the  light  coming  up." 

'^as  it  good  ?"  she  asked,  anxiously. 

"Very.  I  had  never  heard  you  sing  before.  You're 
a  prima  donna." 

"That's  what  I  was  going  to  be.  You  remember 
hearing  us  talking  about  it  at  the  Garcias'?" 

He  nodded,  looking  down  at  the  face  where  health 
was  coming  back  in  delicate  degrees  of  coral  to  lips 
and  cheeks. 

"And  it  really  did  sound  good?"  she  queried  again. 

"Lovely." 

"Quite  soft  and  full,  not  harsh  and  with  all  the  sound 
of  music  gone  out  of  it  ?" 

"Not  a  bit.    It  was  fine." 

She  continued  to  hold  him  around  the  shoulders,  but 
her  eyes  dropped  away  from  his,  which  regarded  her 
with  immovable  earnestness,  touched  by  a  slight,  ten 
der  humor.  She  appeared  to  become  suddenly  thought 
ful. 

"You  can  be  a  prima  donna  still,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  nodding  slightly.  "I  suppose 
I  can." 

"And  it's  a  great  career." 

"Yes,  a  splendid  career." 

"You  travel  everywhere  and  make  a  fortune." 

"If  you're  a  success." 

"Oh,  you'd  be  a  success  all  right." 

She  drew  away  from  him,  letting  one  hand  rest  on 
his  shoulder.  Her  face  had  grown  serious.  She  looked 
disappointed. 


THE    PRIMA   DONNA  457 

"Well,  do  you  want  me  to  be  a  prima  donna?"  she 
asked,  looking  at  her  hand. 

He  continued  to  regard  her  without  answering,  the 
gleam  of  amusement  dying  out  of  his  eyes. 

"Of  course,"  she  added  in  a  small  voice,  "if  you've 
set  your  heart  on  it,  I  will." 

"What  do  you  think  about  it  yourself?"  he  asked. 

She  gave  him  a  swift,  side  look,  just  a  raising  and 
dropping  of  the  lashes. 

"Say  what  you  think  first,"  she  coaxed. 

"Well,  then,  I  will." 

He  put  his  two  hands  suddenly  on  her  shoulders, 
big,  bronzed  hands,  hard  and  muscular,  that  seemed 
to  seize  upon  her  delicate  flesh  with  a  master's  grip. 

"Look  at  me,"  he  commanded. 

She  obeyed.    The  gray  eyes  held  hers  like  a  magnet. 

"I  think  no.  You  don't  belong  to  the  public,  you 
belong  to  me." 

The  color  ran  up  into  her  face  to  the  edge  of  her 
hair. 

"Oh,  Gam,"  she  whispered  on  a  rising  breath,  "I'm 
so  relieved." 

He  dropped  his  hands  from  her  shoulders  and  drew 
her  close  to  him.  With  his  cheek  against  hers  he 
said  softly: 

"You  didn't  think  I  was  that  kind  of  a  fool,  did 
you?" 

The  sun  had  risen  as  they  talked,  at  first  slowly 
peering  with  a  radiant  eye  over  the  mountain's  shoul 
der,  then  shaking  itself  free  of  tree-top  and  rock- 
point,  and  swimming  up  into  the  blue.  The  top  of  the 
range  stood  all  glowing  and  golden,  with  here  and 


458  TOMORROW'S   TANGLE 

there  a  white  peak,  snowily  enameled.  The  rows  of 
pines  were  overlaid  with  a  rosy  brilliance,  their  long 
shadows  slanting  down  the  slopes  as  if  scurrying  away 
from  the  flood  of  heat  and  light.  The  clear  blues  and 
amethysts  that  veiled  the  hollow  of  the  camp  were  dis 
persed  ;  the  films  of  mist  melted ;  a  quivering  silvery 
sparkle  played  over  the  river  shallows. 

In  the  clearing  beams  the  life  of  the  hive  below 
seemed  to  swarm  and  fill  the  air  with  the  clamor  of  its 
awakening.  The  man  and  woman,  looking  down,  saw 
the  toiling  world  turning  to  its  day's  work — the  red 
dust  rising  beneath  grinding  hoof  and  wheel,  the  cars 
sliding  swiftly  on  their  narrow  tracks,  heard  the  shouts 
of  men,  the  hum  of  machinery,  and  through  all  and 
over  all,  the  regular  throb  of  the  engines  like  the  heart 
which  animated  this  isolated  world  of  labor. 

Barron  looked  at  his  domain  for  an  attentive  mo 
ment. 

"There,"  he  said,  pointing  down,  "is  where  I  belong. 
That's  my  life, — to  work  in  wild  places  with  men.  And 
yours  is  with  me,  my  prima  donna.  We  go  together, 
side  by  side,  I  working  and  you  singing  by  the  way." 


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DIFFERENT   AND    DELIGHTFUL 

UNDER  THE 
ROSE 

A  Story  of  the  Loves  of  a  Duke  and  a  Jester 

By  FREDERIC   S.   ISHAM 

Author  of  The  Strollers 


In  "  Under  the  Rose  "  Mr.  Isham  has  written  a  most 
entertaining  book — the  plot  is  unique  ;  the  style  is  graceful  and 
clever  ;  the  whole  story  is  pervaded  by  a  spirit  of  sunshine  and 
good  humor,  and  the  ending  is  a  happy  one.  Mr.  Christy's 
pictures  mark  a  distinct  step  forward  in  illustrative  art.  There 
is  only  one  way,  and  it  is  an  entertaining  one,  to  find  out  what 
is  "  Under  the  Rose  " — read  it 


"  No  one  will  take  up  '  Under  the  Rose  '  and  lay  it  down 
before  completion  ;  many  will  even  return  to  it  for  a  repeated 
reading" — Book  News. 

"  Mr.  Isham  tells  all  of  his  fanciful,  romantic  tale  delight 
fully.  The  reader  who  lovei  romance,  intrigue  and  adventure, 
love-seasoned,  will  find  it  here." — The  Lamp, 

With  Illustrations  in  Six  Colors  by 
Howard  Chandler  Christy 
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A  GOOD  DETECTIVE  STORY 

THE 
FILIGREE  BALL 


By  ANNA  KATHERINE  GREEN 
Author  of  "The  Leavenworth  Case" 


This  is  something  more  than  a  mere  detective  story  ;  it  is 
a  thrilling  romance — a  romance  of  mystery  and  crime  where 
a  shrewd  detective  helps  to  solve  the  mystery.  The  plot  is  a 
novel  and  intricate  one,  carefully  worked  out.  There  are  con 
stant  accessions  to  the  main  mystery,  so  that  the  reader  can 
not  possibly  imagine  the  conclusion.  The  story  is  clean-cut 
and  wholesome,  with  a  quality  that  might  be  called  manly. 
The  characters  are  depicted  so  as  to  make  a  living  impression. 
Cora  Tuttle  is  a  fine  creation,  and  the  flash  of  love  which  she 
gives  the  hero  is  wonderfully  well  done.  Unlike  many  mystery 
stories  The  Filigree  Ball  is  not  disappointing  at  the  end.  The 
characters  most  liked  but  longest  suspected  are  proved  not  only 
guiltless,  but  above  suspicion.  It  is  a  story  to  be  read  with  a 
rush  and  at  a  sitting,  for  no  one  can  put  it  down  until  the 
mystery  is  solved. 

Illustrated  by  C.  M.  Relyea. 
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//  is  fresh  and  spontaneous,  having  nothing  of 

that  wooden  quality  which  is  becoming 

associated    with    the    term 

"  historical  novel" 


HEARTS 
COURAGEOUS 

By  HALLIE  ERMINIE  RIVES 


"  Hearts  Courageous  "  is  made  of  new  material,  a  pic 
turesque  yet  delicate  style,  good  plot  and  very  dramatic 
situations.  The  best  in  the  book  are  the  defence  of  George 
Washington  by  the  Marquis  ;  the  duel  between  the  English 
officer  and  the  Marquis ;  and  Patrick  Henry  flinging  the 
brand  of  war  into  the  assembly  of  the  burgesses  of  Virginia. 
Williamsburg,  Virginia,  the  country  round  about,  and 
the  life  led  in  that  locality  just  before  the  Revolution,  form 
an  attractive  setting  for  the  action  of  the  story. 

With  six  illustrations  by  A.  B.  Wenzell 
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THE  GREAT  NOVEL  OF  THE  YEAR 

THE  MISSISSIPPI 
BUBBLE 

How  the  star  of  good  fortune  rose  and  set  and  rose 

again,  by  a  woman' ' s  grace,  for  one 

John  Law,  of  Lauriston 

A  novel  by  EMERSON  HOUGH 


Emerson  Hough  has  written  one  of  the  best  novels  that  has 
come  out  of  America  in  many  a  day.  It  is  an  exciting  story, 
with  the  literary  touch  on  every  page. 

— JEANNETTE  L.  GILDER,  of  The  Critic. 

In  "The  Mississippi  Bubble"  Emerson  Hough  has  taken 
John  Law  and  certain  known  events  in  his  career,  and  about 
them  he  ha*  voven  a  web  of  romance  full  of  brilliant  coloring 
and  cunning  work.  It  proves  conclusively  that  Mr.  Hough 
is  a  novelist  of  no  ordinary  quality. — The  Brooklyn  Eagle. 

As  a  novel  embodying  a  wonderful  period  in  the  growth  of 
America  "The  Mississippi  Bubble"  is  of  intense  interest.  As 
a  love  story  it  is  rarely  and  beautifully  told.  John  Law,  as 
drawn  in  this  novel,  is  a  great  character,  cool,  debonair,  auda 
cious,  he  is  an  Admirable  Crichton  in  his  personality,  and  a 
Napoleon  in  his  far-reaching  wisdom. — The  Chicago  American. 

The  Illustrations  by  Henry  Hutt 
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A  SPLENDIDLY  VITAL  NARRATION 

THE  MASTER  OF 
APPLEBY 

A  romance  of  the  Carolina^ 
By  FRANCIS  LYNDE 


Viewed  either  as  a  delightful  entertainment  or  as 
a  skilful  and  finished  piece  of  literary  art,  this  is 
easily  one  of  the  most  important  of  recent  novels. 
One  can  not  read  a  dozen  pages  without  realizing 
that  the  author  has  mastered  the  magic  of  the  story 
teller's  art.  After  the  dozen  pages  the  author  is 
forgotten  in  his  creations. 

It  is  rare,  indeed,  that  characters  in  fiction  live 
and  love,  suffer  and  fight,  grasp  and  renounce  in 
so  human  a  fashion  as  in  this  splendidly  vital  nar 
ration. 

With  pictures  by  T.  de  Thulstrup 
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A  VIVACIOUS  ROMANCE  OF  REVOLU 
TIONARY  DAYS 


ALICE  o/OLD 

VINCENNES 

By  MAURICE  THOMPSON 


The  Atlanta  Constitution  says  : 

"Mr.  Thompson,  whose  delightful  writings  in  prose  and 
verse  have  made  his  reputation  national,  has  achieved  his 
master  stroke  of  genius  in  this  historical  novel  of  revolu 
tionary  days  in  the  West." 

The  Denver  Daily  Nevus  says : 

"There  are  three  great  chapters  of  fiction  :  Scott's  tourna 
ment  on  Ashby  field,  General  Wallace's  chariot  race,  and 
now  Maurice  Thompson's  duel  scene  and  the  raising  of 
Alice's  flag  over  old  Fort  Vincennes. 

The  Chicago  Record-Herald  says  : 

"  More  original  than  '  Richard  Carvel,'  more  cohesive  than 
'To  Have  and  To  Hold,'  more  vital  than  '  Janice  Mere 
dith,*  such  is  Maurice  Thompson's  superb  American  ro 
mance,  'Alice  of  Old  Vincennes.'  It  is,  in  addition, 
more  artistic  and  spontaneous  than  any  of  its  rivals." 

VIRGINIA  HARNED  EDITION 

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"NOTHING   BUT    PRAISE" 

LAZARRE 

By  MARY  HARTWELL  CATHERWOOD 


Glorified  by  a  beautiful  love  story.— Chicago  Tribune. 

We  feel  quite  justified  in  predicting  a  wide-spread  and 
prolonged  popularity  for  this  latest  comer  into  the  ranks  of 
historical  fiction.—  The  N.  Y.  Commercial  Advertiser. 

After  all  the  material  for  the  story  had  been  collected  a 
•year  was  required  for  the  writing  of  it.  It  is  an  historical 
romance  of  the  better  sort,  with  stirring  situations,  good  bits 
of  character  drawing  and  a  satisfactory  knowledge  of  the 
tone  and  atmosphere  of  the  period  involved. — N.  Y.  Herald. 

Lazarre,  is  no  less  a  person  than  the  Dauphin,  Louis 
XVII.  of  France,  and  a  right  royal  hero  he  makes.  A  prince 
who,  for  the  sake  oi  his  lady,  scorns  perils  in  two  hemis 
pheres,  facing  the  wrath  of  kings  in  Europe  and  the  bullets 
of  savages  in  America;  who  at  the  last  spurns  a  kingdom  that 
he  may  wed  her  freely— here  is  one  to  redeem  the  sins  of  even 
those  who  "never  learn  and  never  forget."— Philadelphia 
North  A  merican. 

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YOUTH,  SPLENDOR  AND  TRAGEDY 

FRANC  EZKA 

By  MOLLY  ELLIOT  SEAWELL 


There  is  no  character  in  fiction  more  lovable  and  appeal 
ing  than  is  Francezka.  Miss  Seawell  has  told  a  story  of  youth, 
splendor  and  tragedy  with  an  art  which  links  it  with  summer 
dreams,  which  drowns  the  somber  in  the  picturesque,  which 
makes  pain  and  vice  a  stage  wonder. 

The  book  is  marked  by  the  same  sparkle  and  cleverness  of 
the  author's  earlier  work,  to  which  is  added  a  dignity  and  force 
which  makes  it  most  noteworthy. 


"  Here  is  a  novel  that  not  only  provides  the  reader  with  a 
succession  of  sprightly  adventures,  but  furnishes  a  narrative 
brilliant,  witty  and  clever.  The  period  is  the  first  half  of  that 
most  fascinating,  picturesque  and  epoch-making  century,  the 
eighteenth.  Francezka  is  a  winsome  heroine.  The  story  has 
light  and  shadow  and  high  spirits,  tempered  with  the  gay, 
mocking,  debonair  philosophy  of  the  time." — Brooklyn  Times. 

Charmingly  illustrated  by  Harrison  Fisher 

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WHAT  BOOK  BY  A  NEW  AUTHOR  HAS 
RECEIVED  SUCH  PRAISE? 


WHAT  MANNER 
OF  MAN 

By  EDNA  KENTON 


The  novel,  "  What  Manner  of  Man,"  is  a  study  of  what 
is  commonly  known  as  the  "artistic  temperament, "  and  a 
novel  so  far  above  the  average  level  of  Merit  as  to  cause  even 
tired  reviewers  Co  sit  up  and  take  hope  once  more. 

— New  Turk  Times. 

It  will  certainly  stand  out  as  one  of  the  most  notable  novels 
of  the  year. — Philadelphia  Press. 

It  does  not  need  a  trained  critical  faculty  to  recognize  that 
this  book  is  something  more  than  clever. — N.  Y.  Commercial. 

Note  should  be  made  of  the  literary  charm  and  value  of  the 
work,  and  likewise  of  its  eminently  readable  quality,  considered 
purely  as  a  romance.  — Philadelphia  Record. 

Literary  distinction  is  stamped  on  every  page,  and  the  author' s 
insight  into  the  human  heart  gives  promise  of  a  brilliant  future. 
— Chicago  Record-Herald. 

The  whole  book  is  full  of  dramatic  force.  The  author  is 
sn  unusual  thinker  and  observer,  and  has  a  rare  gift  for  creative 
literature. — Philadelphia  Evening  Telegraph. 

"  What  Manner  of  Man  "  is  a  study  and  a  creation. 

— N.  r,  Won.d. 

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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
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